Tag Archives: immigration

US

White House announces sweeping immigration bill

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The legislation faces an uphill climb in a narrowly divided Congress, where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has just a five-vote margin and Senate Democrats do not have the 60 Democratic votes needed to pass the measure with just their party’s support.

Administration officials argued Wednesday evening that the legislation was an attempt by President Joe Biden to restart a conversation on overhauling the US immigration system and said he remained open to negotiating.

“He was in the Senate for 36 years, and he is the first to tell you the legislative process can look different on the other end than where it starts,” one administration official said in a call with reporters, adding that Biden would be “willing to work with Congress.”

The effort comes as there are multiple standalone bills in Congress aimed at revising smaller pieces of the country’s immigration system. Sens. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, and Majority Whip Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, for example, have reintroduced their DREAM Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for immigrants who came to the country illegally as children.

Administration officials said the best path forward and plans either to pass one bill or break it into multiple pieces would be up to Congress.

“There’s things that I would deal by itself, but not at the expense of saying, ‘I’m never going to do the other.’ There is a reasonable path to citizenship,” Biden said at a CNN town hall in Milwaukee on Tuesday.

“The President is committed to working with Congress to engage in conversations about the best way forward,” one administration official said.

Officials did not say if they believed that the reconciliation process, a special budget tool that applies only to a specific subset of legislation and allows the Senate to pass bills with a simple majority, would be applicable for an immigration bill. “Too early to speculate about it right now,” one official said.

The Senate is working on passing the President’s coronavirus relief legislation through reconciliation. The expectation is that the administration could also use the process to pass an infrastructure bill.

Biden’s immigration bill will be introduced by Democrats Bob Menendez of New Jersey in the Senate and Linda Sanchez of California in the House.

Here’s what the bill, titled the US Citizenship Act of 2021, includes:

Plan for a pathway to citizenship

The legislation goes further than the last effort in 2013 by cutting the time to acquire citizenship to eight years instead of 13, according to an administration official.

First, individuals would be in a temporary status for five years, with three years until they get citizenship, amounting to an eight-year path.

There’s an exception for undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children, who fall under a form of humanitarian relief known as Temporary Protected Status or who are farmworkers. Those individuals can go directly to green cards if they meet requirements, including passing background checks.

To be eligible for the bill’s legalization plan, immigrants must have been in the country before January 1, 2021.

Terminology change

Biden’s proposed bill, if passed, also would remove the word “alien” from US immigration laws, replacing it with the term “noncitizen.” The change, an administration official said, is “to better reflect the President’s values on immigration.”
US code currently defines “alien” as “any person not a citizen or national of the United States.”

Officials in the past have pointed to the term’s prevalence in US laws to defend their word choices.

But the term “illegal alien,” long decried as a dehumanizing slur by immigrant rights advocates, became even more of a lightning rod during the Trump era — with some top federal officials encouraging its use and several states and local governments taking up measures to ban it.

Clear backlogs

The bill would exempt certain categories from counting toward annual caps. For example, spouses, partners and children under the age of 21 of lawful permanent residents would be exempt from the caps.

The bill also provides funding to US Citizenship and Immigration Services to chip away at the backlog of asylum applications.

Changes to the legal immigration system

The bill provides funding for more immigration judges and puts an emphasis on access to counsel. It authorizes funding for counsel for children and vulnerable individuals, and eliminates the one-year limit for filing an asylum case.

The measure would also repeal the bars to reentering the United States if an individual had previously been illegally residing in the country.

It increases the number of available so-called diversity visas, which are awarded by random selection in select countries to promote immigration from places that don’t otherwise send many immigrants to the US. The bill would up the number of visas granted annually from 55,000 to 80,000, according to an administration official.

The legislation proposes creating a commission composed of employers, labor unions and civil rights advocates to make recommendations on improving worker verification, according to an administration official. The measure would also increase protections for immigrants who come forward to report labor violations and increase penalties for employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers.

Invest in US-Mexico border and Central America

The bill would address root causes of migration and work to tackle them by, for example, cracking down on smugglers and narcotics and trafficking networks. It would seek to create legal and safer pathways for migration by setting up refugee processing in Central America and would create a $4 billion investment plan in the region.

“It will be developed in a bipartisan manner, first of all, but it also will require countries in the region to reaffirm a commitment to corruption, to invest their own resources and take action to reform their systems,” an administration official said.

The measure also includes enhancing technology and infrastructure at the border, like enhanced screening at ports of entry.

CNN’s Catherine Shoichet contributed to this report.

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Colombia will legalize undocumented Venezuelan migrants

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BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia said Monday it will register hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants and refugees currently in the country without papers, in a bid to provide them with legal residence permits and facilitate their access to health care and legal employment opportunities.

President Ivan Duque said that through a new temporary protection statute, Venezuelan migrants who are in the country illegally will be eligible for 10-year residence permits, while migrants who are currently on temporary residence will be able to extend their stay.

The new measure could benefit up to one million Venezuelan citizens who are currently living in Colombia without proper papers, as well as hundreds of thousands who need to extend temporary visas.

President Duque announced the protection measure in a stately government palace in Bogota while standing with Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

“As we take this historic and transcendental step for Latin America we hope other countries will follow our example,” Duque told a room full of ambassadors and diplomats, who were invited to witness the announcement.

Grandi said the new policy would improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of impoverished people and called it an “extraordinary gesture” of humanity, pragmatism and commitment to human rights.

Colombia’s government estimates that 1.8 million Venezuelans are currently living in the country, and that 55% of them don’t have proper residence papers. Most have arrived since 2015 to escape hyperinflation, food shortages and an increasingly authoritarian government.

Duque said that registering these undocumented immigrants and refugees would benefit Colombia’s security agencies and would also make the provision of social services, including coronavirus vaccines, more efficient.

The government said Venezuelans who arrive legally in Colombia within the next two years will also be allowed to apply for temporary protection.

The new policy comes after Donald Trump signed an executive order in the last days of his presidency that halted deportations of tens of thousands of Venezuelans living in the United States.

Colombia’s new temporary protection statute will be implemented as migrants leaving Venezuela find it harder to settle in other South American countries, due to land border closures and growing anti-immigrant sentiment.

In Ecuador, hundreds of Venezuelans are currently stuck along the country’s southern border following Peru’s decision to send tanks and troops to the area to stop illegal border crossings.

Other popular destinations for Venezuelan migrants include Panama and Chile, which have imposed visa requirements that make it harder for Venezuelans to move to those countries.

According to the United Nations, there are 4.7 million Venezuelan migrants and other refugees in other Latin American countries after fleeing the economic collapse and political divide in their homeland. Colombia is home to more than a third of them.

Duque said that while Colombia’s decision will provide some relief, he did not expect it to stop the Venezuelan exodus.

“If we want to stop this crisis countries have to reflect about how to end the dictatorship in Venezuela,” he said. “We have to think about how to set up a transitional government and organize free elections.”

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Judge bars Biden from enforcing 100-day deportation ban

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HOUSTON (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday barred the U.S. government from enforcing a 100-day deportation moratorium that is a key immigration priority of President Joe Biden.

U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton issued a temporary restraining order sought by Texas, which sued on Friday against a Department of Homeland Security memo that instructed immigration agencies to pause most deportations. Tipton said the Biden administration had failed “to provide any concrete, reasonable justification for a 100-day pause on deportations.”

Tipton’s order is an early blow to the Biden administration, which has proposed far-reaching changes sought by immigration advocates, including a plan to legalize an estimated 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. Biden promised during his campaign to pause most deportations for 100 days.

The order represents a victory for Texas’ Republican leaders, who often sued to stop programs enacted by Biden’s Democratic predecessor, President Barack Obama. It also showed that just as Democratic-led states and immigration groups fought former President Donald Trump over immigration in court, often successfully, so too will Republicans with Biden in office.

David Pekoske, the acting Homeland Security secretary, signed a memo on Biden’s first day directing immigration authorities to focus on national security and public safety threats as well as anyone apprehended entering the U.S. illegally after Nov. 1. That was a reversal from Trump administration policy that made anyone in the U.S. illegally a priority for deportation.

The 100-day moratorium went into effect Friday and applied to almost anyone who entered the U.S. without authorization before November.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued that the moratorium violated federal law as well as an agreement Texas signed with the Department of Homeland Security late in the Trump administration. That agreement required Homeland Security to consult with Texas and other states before taking any action to “reduce, redirect, reprioritize, relax, or in any way modify immigration enforcement.”

The Biden administration argued in court filings that the agreement is unenforceable because “an outgoing administration cannot contract away that power for an incoming administration.” Paxton’s office, meanwhile, submitted a Fox News opinion article as evidence that “refusal to remove illegal aliens is directly leading to the immediate release of additional illegal aliens in Texas.”

Tipton, a Trump appointee, wrote that his order was not based on the agreement between Texas and the Trump administration, but federal law to preserve the “status quo” before the DHS moratorium.

Paxton has championed conservative and far-right causes in court, including a failed lawsuit seeking to overturn Biden’s victory over Trump, as he himself faces an FBI investigation over accusations by top former aides that he abused his office at the service of a donor.

In response to the order, Paxton tweeted “VICTORY” and described the deportation moratorium as a “seditious left-wing insurrection,” an apparent reference to the Jan. 6 insurrection in which Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. Five people died in the Capitol riots, including a Capitol Police officer.

Kate Huddleston of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas criticized Paxton and argued his lawsuit shouldn’t be allowed to proceed.

“The administration’s pause on deportations is not only lawful but necessary to ensure that families are not separated and people are not returned to danger needlessly while the new administration reviews past actions,” Huddleston said in a statement.

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Biden open to breaking his immigration bill into pieces

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But the main objective is progress. And if that means moving components of reform through Congress one at a time, or in smaller packages, Biden will be fine with that, two sources close to the White House said.

“It’s not an all-or-nothing approach,” said one source with knowledge of the White House discussions. “We aren’t saying you have to pass the Biden bill. But we are saying this is what we want to do and we are planning to move legalization forward.”

Biden’s immigration plan was an aggressive opening salvo embraced by the base, while Republicans, not surprisingly, gave it a cool reception. Some on the Hill privately questioned if Biden was simply checking a box to appease activists. Immigrant advocates, for their part, say they have no reason to believe — at this point — that Biden’s bill is ceremonial. But they warn that if substantial immigration reforms don’t reach his desk by the end of the year, Democrats and Biden would not only face an uproar from Dreamers and grassroots organizers — but the party could suffer politically as well.

“I want to be clear: There is nothing about the way they are behaving right now that suggests it is not a priority,” said Lorella Praeli, president of Community Change Action, a progressive grassroots group. “And in the event that it were not [a priority], they will lose the majority in 2022.”

Biden’s proposal, introduced hours after he was sworn in, includes a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, expanded refugee resettlement and more technology deployed to the border. Though he is leaving Congress to hash out the mechanics of passing his immigration plan, he’s also moving ahead with a slate of executive actions on Friday. Among the orders in the works are one that restores asylum protections and another that creates a task force to reunify families separated at the border.

Taken together, Biden’s legislative immigration plan and swift unilateral actions present a clear departure from the last time a Democrat was in the White House. At a minimum, Biden seems keen to avoid the missteps during former President Barack Obama’s first term, when Democrats controlled both chambers, but Obama didn’t pursue comprehensive immigration reform. Rather than wait until after the 2022 midterms or into a second term, Biden sent his plan to the Hill immediately.

“People forget that in 2009 and 2010 that the Obama administration was in the exact same situation and did not introduce an immigration bill,” said Leon Fresco, an immigration attorney who worked in the Obama administration and sits on a Department of Homeland Security advisory board.

“For the next decade, people criticized the Obama administration for not having introduced a bill when they had control of the Senate and the House,” Fresco added. “Joe Biden is simply not going to repeat that mistake.”

As sources close to the administration put it, Biden wanted to make his immigration priorities clear, even if the process of getting passed into law will be arduous.

“He’s not starting at the 50-yard line” with a moderate proposal like Obama did, said the source close to the White House.

A White House official disputes that Biden is deferring to Congress and says the president is working with lawmakers to pass the larger bill. That proposal includes elements the president feels weren’t effectively addressed previously as the Trump administration’s policy was centered around building a border wall, the official said. “We expect elected officials from both sides of the aisle to come to the table so we can finally get this done,” the official said.

Additionally, other sources close to the White House and a number of immigrant advocates said Democrats must frame any immigration push as vital to the country’s economic recovery. But while the administration is actively monitoring and engaged in the reform effort, it’s stepping back while Congress works out the actual legislative language.

“We’re not going to just enforce our will,” Cedric Richmond, director of White House Office of Public Engagement said during an event with POLITICO last week. Congress should view Biden’s bill as “a statement of priority,” he said, but they have to “buy into it.”

Biden’s first priority is an immediate coronavirus response and related stimulus negotiations. Still, they’re holding briefings with Hill Democrats on immigration reform. White House policy advisers have held calls with Hispanic Caucus offices and chiefs for Border members.

“We would like to see them move forward quickly,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said of congressional action on Biden’s immigration proposal last week.

Most lawmakers and staff who spoke to POLITICO say they think Biden is serious.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) described passing a comprehensive reform bill as a “herculean task.” But the Biden administration “will put political capital on the table to make it happen,” he said on a call with immigrant and labor advocates last week.

Undoubtedly the divisiveness stoked under former President Donald Trump is going to make cross-party support for any major immigration bill hard to come by. As one House chief of staff put it, “there really is no room for error.”

Despite early pushback from some Republicans, Menendez is optimistic more will come to the table. He’s spoken with Sen. Lindsey Graham, who in 2013 supported comprehensive reform, and Menendez thinks the South Carolina Republican will ultimately support reform measures. Menendez has not spoken to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla) about the bill yet, but he’s talked to other Republicans who voted in favor of the effort in 2013. The additional Republicans still in office that supported immigration reform under Obama are Sens. John Hoeven (N.D.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine).

Menendez and a number of other Democratic lawmakers said they want to push a large immigration package at once, hopeful that it will provide more leverage in negotiations. But the realities of a split Senate make it harder, and other senators like Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin—who will be tasked with shepherding any immigration reforms through the Senate Judiciary Committee—have left the door open to a more step by step approach.

Though talks are early and fluid, some House members working on Biden’s immigration proposal said during a recent meeting that they want to take a shot at a comprehensive bill first. But they said they’re open to breaking off individual pieces if the larger bill stalls, according to a source with knowledge of discussions. A sweeping package could meet fierce resistance in the 50-50 Senate if Democrats don’t eliminate the legislative filibuster or find ways to include immigration proposals in the budget reconciliation process.

If, in fact, Congress does decide to break the bill down into components, they may find that advocates are receptive to that approach.

That’s because those advocates are eyeing a ticking clock: Bills that were passed last Congress can be moved to the floor directly without having to go through committee if they are voted on before April 1. If brought to the floor before the deadline, certain bills, such as those providing a pathway for so-called Dreamers, temporary protective status holders and Deferred Enforced Departure holders from war- and disaster-ravaged countries could move through the House more quickly.

“Certainly Democrats should do the work to build support for the president’s larger-scale reform proposal,” said Tom Jawetz, vice president of immigration policy at the Center for American Progress. “But they can’t let any opportunity pass or any legislative tool go unused.” That includes using reconciliation to provide permanent protections for essential workers and their family members on the coronavirus relief and economic recovery packages currently in the works, he said.

Jawetz and other advocates have urged Democrats in Congress to take wins where they can get them, saying it could build goodwill and an appetite for even more action.

If Democrats don’t begin moving those components this spring then “there will be a lot of backlash coming because everyone knows that this is the moment,” said Marshall Fitz, managing director of immigration for the Emerson Collective, a social justice organization.

So far, advocates are taking Biden at his word, saying they have no reason to believe he sent his immigration bill to Congress on Day One simply as a symbolic gesture. Still, they’re watching closely and mounting pressure campaigns that include digital ad buys and readying grassroots organizing, to ensure Congress acts decisively. A number of immigrant rights groups are also participating in regular briefings with House staff.

“[We can] be cynical or skeptical about what the likelihood of Republicans coming to the table on some of this might be,” Fitz said. “But I think Biden really legitimately does want to see how far he can go.”

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Trump agreements seek to tie Biden’s hands on immigration

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SAN DIEGO (AP) — During the Trump administration’s final weeks, the Department of Homeland Security quietly signed agreements with at least four states that threaten to temporarily derail President Joe Biden’s efforts to undo his predecessor’s immigration policies.

The agreements say Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana and Texas are entitled to a 180-day consultation period before executive branch policy changes take effect. The Biden administration rejects that argument on grounds that immigration is solely the federal government’s responsibility under the Constitution.

Former President Donald Trump relied heavily on executive powers for his immigration agenda because he was unable to build enough support for his policies in Congress. Now some of his supporters say Biden is going too far in doing the same to reverse them.

The first legal test is in Texas, where the Republican governor and attorney general are challenging the Democratic president’s 100-day moratorium on deportations, which took effect Friday.

The Homeland Security Department told lawmakers shortly before Biden’s inauguration last week that it reached nine agreements, mostly with states, according to a congressional official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss information that is not yet publicly available.

The department declined to comment, citing the lawsuit. The Trump administration, usually eager to trumpet immigration enforcement, stayed publicly quiet on the agreements, which were first reported by BuzzFeed News.

The nine-page agreements known as Sanctuary for Americans First Enactment, or SAFE, are expansive. They require that state and local governments get 180 days’ notice of changes in the number of immigration agents, the number of people released from from immigration custody, enforcement priorities, asylum criteria and who qualifies for legal status.

Without offering evidence, the agreements say looser enforcement can hurt education, health care, housing and jobs.

Sheriff Sam Page of Rockingham County, North Carolina, on the Virginia border, signed an agreement on Dec. 22.

“Any incoming administration is likely to make changes in policy,” the sheriff said. “Policy changes at the federal level affect us on the local level. It is our hope that the SAFE agreement will foster timely communications about any significant forthcoming policy changes. We are simply asking for notice of these changes.”

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican, signed an agreement on Dec. 15 to “stem the tide of illegal immigration,” spokesman Cory Dennis said.

“While some may attempt to blur the lines, there is a difference between legal and illegal immigration, and it is important to recognize that,” he said. “Our office will continue to be a watchdog for any changes to immigration policies that may be detrimental to the people of Louisiana.”

In Indiana, former state Attorney General Curtis Hill, a Republican, signed the agreement on Dec. 22. Rachel Hoffmeyer, spokeswoman for Gov. Eric Holcomb, said it will remain in place after an initial review.

Katie Conner, a spokeswoman for Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, confirmed that the state signed, saying it “has numerous cooperative agreements with federal, state and local enforcement agencies, including DHS.”

In addition to the deportation moratorium, the Biden administration suspended a policy to make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court. Six of Biden’s 17 first-day executive orders dealt with immigration, such as halting work on a border wall with Mexico and lifting a travel ban on people from several predominantly Muslim countries.

Hiroshi Motomura, a professor of immigration law and policy at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law, called the agreements “a very unusual, last-minute sort of thing” and said they raise questions about how an administration can tie the hands of its successor. He believes a deportation moratorium was within a president’s power.

Steve Legomsky, professor emeritus of the Washington University School of Law and former chief counsel for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said the agreements are “a terrible idea” that could create “a race to the bottom,” with states opposing immigration competing against each other to drive immigrants elsewhere.

“For our entire history, immigration policy has been understood to be the exclusive responsibility of the federal government,” Legomsky said.

Keeping immigration enforcement with the federal government allows the nation to speak with a single voice as a matter of foreign policy and consistency across states, Legomsky said. We “can’t have 50 conflicting sets of immigration laws operating at the same time,” he said.

The Biden administration made similar arguments in a court filing Sunday after Texas asked a federal judge to block the deportation moratorium.

Texas, which has led a challenge to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to shield hundreds of thousands of young people from deportation, argued that the moratorium violated its agreement with Homeland Security. The state also argued that the moratorium violates federal rule-making procedures.

U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton in Victoria, Texas, who was appointed last year by Trump, held hearings on Friday and Monday to consider Texas’ request.

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Associated Press writers Ben Fox in Washington, Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, Casey Smith in Indianapolis, Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Anita Snow in Phoenix contributed to this report.

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World

Biden stresses COVID, immigration in first calls with foreign leaders

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President Joe Biden stressed North American cooperation on the coronavirus pandemic, climate change and immigration in his first telephone calls with Mexican and Canadian leaders.

In phone calls Friday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Biden promised to strengthen regional cooperation, according to reports.

In the call with Trudeau, the first foreign leader to speak with the new president, the two leaders “discussed collaboration on vaccines and acknowledged that the two countries’ efforts are strengthened by existing exchanges of medical personnel and the flow of critical medical supplies,” according to Canadian reports.

Although Trudeau hailed Biden’s presidency as a “new era” for relations between the countries, he complained that Biden had scrapped an oil pipeline linking the two countries on his first day in office. According to a White House statement, Biden acknowledged “Trudeau’s disappointment regarding the decision to rescind the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.”

In the conversation with Lopez Obrador, the Mexican president addressed the contribution of Mexican migrants in the US and said the best way to manage migration was to create economic development in impoverished regions from which migrants set off, according to a statement from Mexico’s foreign ministry.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks on the phone with President Joe Biden on Jan. 22, 2021.
Adam Scotti/Prime Minister’s Office/Handout via Reuters

The call comes at a time of tension over the US federal investigation into former Mexican defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos, which was dropped in November. US prosecutors had claimed that Cienfuegos was the head of the H-2 drug cartel.

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