Category: News

The Trump administration has made no secret of wanting to drastically cut immediate family immigration to the U.S.   In 2017, President Trump threw his support behind the RAISE Act, despite the fact that had such a law then been in place, his own mother, grandfather, and wife’s parents would not have been able to immigrate to the U.S.   Later, he refused to support a bipartisan proposal creating a path to permanent residency for DACA holders in part because it did not cut immediate family immigration.   The administration maintains that family-based immigrants are less capable of contributing to the U.S. economy than employment-based immigrants, despite centuries of contrary evidence .

Now, the Administration is on the cusp of bypassing Congress and deploying a change in regulations as its vehicle to cut immediate family immigration.

A draft proposed rule expected imminently would dramatically change how the “public charge” ground of inadmissibility is applied, with the result that immediate family immigrants who are not middle class or wealthy are likely to be denied residency.   This will harm U.S. citizens and permanent residents (LPR) who petition for their immediate relatives’ residency.   It will also strike a blow at  our communities and our economy, which increasingly needs immigrants to help shore up our shrinking labor force.  (The rule change would also apply to nonimmigrants applying to extend or change their temporary visas, but the practical impact there is likely to be minimal).

• What is the “public charge” ground of inadmissibility and how has it been applied to date?

With exceptions for refugees and some other particularly vulnerable classes of people, intending immigrants to the U.S. must prove that they are unlikely to become a “public charge” after obtaining residency.  This is one of the nation’s oldest immigration laws, dating to the late 1800’s.

In assessing whether a person is likely to become a public charge, the government has historically looked at whether the person appears to be healthy, already has a history of working and/or seems willing to work in the future, and can consider the person’s age, education, skills, family supports, as well as her/his assets or other financial resources.   In 1996, Congress added a requirement for family-based immigrants that became the determinant factor – an “affidavit of support” from the petitioning U.S. citizen or LPR immediate family member showing the petitioner’s ability to support the new immigrant with an income of at least 125% of the federal poverty level for the household size. Typically, as long as a family-based immigrant has the required affidavit of support, s/he is approved for residency.

• What would the proposed rule change do?

The draft proposed rule would make the family affidavit of support a mere threshold, triggering close and harsh scrutiny of the intending immigrant.  The administration estimates that annually, 257,610 immediate family immigrants already in the U.S. when applying for LPR status will be subject to the rule change.

In the 200 page preamble to the 20 page draft proposed rule change, the administration discusses factors that will weigh heavily against any prospective LPR, despite her/his petitioning  U.S. citizen or LPR immediate family member’s affidavit of support.  Applicants may be denied residency if they:

– have accompanying children under age 18, or if they themselves are under 18 or over 61;

– do not already speak English at least “very well,” or do not have higher education;

–  are not currently working (even if they have preschool age children and are stay-at-home parents, and have a prior work history);

–  have a health condition and do not have “nonsubsidized” health insurance;

–  do not have at least a “fair” credit score or can’t prove a history of paying bills on time;

–  have lived in a household where they or their U.S. citizen family member(s), for example their children or their petitioning spouse, have received any public benefits.  Under current law, only cash benefits are considered.  Under the draft proposed rule, the government would also include income supports such as the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit (widely considered as highly effective anti-poverty measures for low-income working families), ACA health insurance subsidies, heating assistance (LIHEAP), and Food Stamps (SNAP), among many others.

The only factor that will be weighed heavily in an intending immigrant’s favor is if s/he has income that exceeds 250% of the annual federal poverty guidelines (in 2018, that would be an income of at least $62,750 for a family of four).  The Migration Policy Institute reports that 2.3 million, or 56%, of immediate family members who immigrated in the past 5 years live in families whose incomes would not meet that threshold.

• What would the impact of this rule change be?

In the proposed rule’s preamble, the government acknowledges the damage this rule is likely to cause, stating that:

the proposed regulatory action, if finalized, may increase the number of aliens found inadmissible….

Applicants for residency who are inadmissible are denied residency and in most cases then become deportable from the U.S., causing immeasurable harm to the affected family.

The government also notes that

the action has the potential to erode family stability and decrease disposable income of families and children because the action provides a strong disincentive for the receipt or use of public benefits by aliens, as well as their household members, including U.S. children. (Emphasis added).

In the preamble, the government notes that the harm the rule change will cause is worth it, because it alleges immigrants cost the country too much by their benefits use.   However, multiple studies have found that immigrants contribute more than they cost in public benefits, studies that the government ignores, as a commentary by the Cato Institute recently noted.

To be clear – since 1996, new immigrants have been barred from receiving federal non-emergency public benefits for their first five years as LPRs.   It is U.S. citizen children and their petitioning parent in “working poor” families whom this rule change will harm.

For example,  in FY 2018, a U.S. citizen with three U.S. citizen children who is working full-time at $15.35 per hour has a low enough income to qualify for federal food stamps  (SNAP).   However, when the immigrant spouse applies for residency, under the proposed draft rule, the government could deny the residency application if the children receive SNAP benefits.  This is despite the fact that as an LPR, the new immigrant would become eligible to work and to substantially increase the family’s income, decreasing or eliminating the family’s need for assistance.  (Often the immigrating spouse is undocumented and legally unable to work until obtaining residency).

Already, having heard rumors of the proposed rule, U.S. citizens reportedly are foregoing income supports that would help keep them and their children healthy because of fears that their immigrating relative will be denied residency.  And were the draft proposed rule to take effect, even in households that receive no public benefits, stay-at-home immigrant parents who provide childcare and are not working, or who speak limited English, or who have not gone to college, will likely be denied residency.

At a time when the U.S. economy is strong and unemployment is low, we need new immigrants at all skill and education levels keep our communities vibrant and to power our economy.   This draft proposed rule’s clear intention to  dramatically reduce immediate family immigration to the U.S. will penalize lower income individuals by depriving them of the family unity that our immigration system and our nation have long valued and prioritized.  It will also make U.S. citizen and LPRs afraid to access programs that help keep their families healthy and safe. And it will harm our economy by depressing immigration levels and reducing the income and consumption potential made possible when an immediate family can be together and be comprised of new wage-earning LPRs.

As this Bloomberg editorial notes, this draft proposed rule is bad for families and bad for the economy. Once published, the government must accept public comment on the rule. Contact MeBIC if you are a Maine business and would like to submit comments opposing the rule change.

 

 

 

 

Update:  The Business Roundtable, comprised of CEOs from some of the nation’s largest and most influential companies, sent a letter on August 22, 2018 to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielson outlining the damage that the Administration’s various policy changes are causing employers and the U.S. economy.  Changes in adjudication practices such as those noted below are just one of the many that the letter notes. Read the letter here.

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The National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) has released a report highlighting a dramatic increase in the number of denials, and requests for evidence (RFEs) that delay adjudication, of petitions for extraordinary ability, professional level. and specialty occupation foreign workers under the Trump Administration.

Looking at FY 2017 government data (October 1, 2016 – September 30, 2017), the NFAP found that the increase in denials and RFEs for H-1B professional specialty occupation workers spiked in the 4th quarter of FY 2017, shortly after President Trump issued his Buy American and Hire American Executive order.   In that quarter, the number of H-1B RFEs was nearly equal to the total number of RFEs issued in the first three quarters of FY 2017.  Indeed, the NFAP noted that 69% of H-1B petitions considered in Q4 of FY2017 received RFEs, compared to 17% in Q1, the last quarter under the Obama administration.  And RFEs relating to H-1B petitions filed on behalf of Indian citizens were notably higher than for those filed for citizens of other countries.  Similar marked increases of outright denials of petitions were noted in the 4th quarter, with Indian citizens bearing the largest brunt.

The increase in H-1B denials and RFE’s is perhaps unsurprising, given other changes that this administration has undertaken, such as no longer deferring to a prior USCIS approval when an employer applies for an extension of the exact same worker for the exact same job, as had been long-standing practice.

The NFAP report also found increases in RFEs and denials of petitions, particularly for Indian citizens, for L-1 intracompany transferees, and for O-1 “extraordinary ability workers” in FY 2017.

The increase in RFEs continued in the first two quarters of FY 2018, according to the NFAP, indicating that the FY 2017 numbers were likely the start of a trend, not a blip.

The upshot of the increase in RFEs is delay and uncertainty for both employers and foreign born workers, even if the visa petitions are ultimately approved after the the government receives and considers the additional evidence.   Denials obviously mean that the employer will not be able to employ the employee.   The Society of Human Resource Management has noted the increasing difficulty that these changes are causing employers in their talent acquisition efforts nationwide.

As the NFAP’s director points out in this Forbes commentary, economists have noted the positive effects that foreign born STEM employees in particular bring to the U.S. economy, and the wage growth of native born employees that results from importation of H-1B workers.  Administration efforts to effectively shrink the number of foreign born professional workers in the country are misguided.

These delays and denials are part of a series of barriers that the Administration has been imposing that make it harder for U.S. employers to get the talent that they need, regardless of where they were born. .   The full effects on our economy have not yet been felt, but without a course correction from this administration, they will be. 

Read the full NFAP report here.

 

This update on the fate of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program follows our more detailed update found  here.

Following oral argument on August 8th in the federal district court in Texas in the case filed by several states challenging DACA’s legality (Texas et al. v. Nielsen et al.), the judge ordered written arguments from the parties.  A decision is expected imminently.

In the meantime, in the case in the D.C. federal district court challenging the legality of the administration’s rescission of the DACA program ( NAACP v. Trump et al.), the government asked for a stay, during the appeals process, of the judge’s order requiring that it resume processing DACA applications from first-time applicants.  Without a stay, USCIS would have to begin accepting applications from new DACA applicants on August 23rd.  On August 15th, the plaintiffs notified the judge that they do not object to the government’s request for a stay.

This decision by the plaintiffs may be aimed in large part at the Texas case, since the states had argued in part that adding new DACA recipients to their populations would harm them, despite ample anecdotal and empirical evidence of the economic and  social contributions that those with DACA are making, as many Texas business associations highlighted in their brief to the court.

Meanwhile, DACA holders still don’t know what their future holds.  Stay tuned……

 

On July 5, 2018, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it will extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) through March 3, 2020 for nationals of Yemen whose current TPS is due to expire on September 3, 2018.

Eligible Yemenis must file their reregistration applications between August 14, 2018 and October 15, 2018.  Their work permits  are automatically extended through March 2, 2019.   Employers must accept a copy of eligible Yemenis’ current work permits plus a copy of the Federal Register notice to update their I-9 forms during the USCIS adjudication process.

TPS is offered to citizens of countries that our government deems unsafe due to natural disasters or wars and civil conflict, so that those already in the U.S. when the Administration designates their country for TPS can apply to remain and work here legally.  It is typically offered in 18 month increments, and has often been extended repeatedly.  For example, Somalia has been designated for TPS since the early 1990s.

The Administration’s willingness to renew Yemeni TPS stands in contrast to its decisions over the past year to end TPS for individuals from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Sudan.   While the Administration estimates that about 1250 current Yemeni TPS beneficiaries will be able to extend their TPS, over 300,000 citizens of the countries named above will lose legal status and the ability to work and contribute to our communities and our economy when their current TPS ends, as MeBIC has noted previously.

 

As we have highlighted previously, the Administration is not just engaging in harmful and headline grabbing actions at the U.S. southern border, but is also taking steps targeting professional level and other immigrants essential to the strength of the U.S. economy.

This recent Wall Street Journal column highlights some of the lesser known actions taken daily in the administration of our immigration laws that is resulting in employers losing talented employees, and in some cases, leading to decisions to take their operations to other countries.

Update:  On July 30, 2018, USCIS delayed implementation of its new NTA policy, discussed below, while it develops operational guidance.   The new policy expanding USCIS’s authority to deny incomplete applications is still slated to go into effect on September 11, 2018, however.

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In 2002, Congress divided the former Immigration and Naturalization Service into three parts with separate missions.   Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were charged with border and interior enforcement, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) was to provide services to citizens and noncitizens alike, including offering information and processing applications for work permits, nonimmigrant visas or other temporary statuses, permanent residency, and U.S. citizenship.

Recent policy changes by the current administration are subverting USCIS’s service role and turning it into an enforcement agency.

• USCIS is given green light to initiate removal proceedings.

On June 28, 2018, USCIS issued a policy change broadening when it will issue a Notice to Appear (NTA), the document that initiates proceedings to remove a person from the U.S.   In the past, if USCIS denied an application for an immigration benefit, it ordinarily would refer the case to ICE to determine if NTA issuance was warranted. USCIS itself only issued the NTA in very limited circumstances, such as if it deemed the application to be fraudulent, or that the applicant had criminal convictions or presented a security risk.

Under the new policy, USCIS can issue an NTA against any person who is out of status when it denies a petition.  For example, the visa of an H-1B professional who timely filed for an extension may expire during the time it takes USCIS to decide the application, due to long processing backlogs. Prior to the new policy, if the extension were denied, the former H-1B professional could leave the U.S. and apply for a new visa from abroad.  Under the new policy, s/he could not leave without first appearing before an immigration judge.   Nationwide, the immigration courts are buckling under the strain of over 700,000 pending cases, with it taking years to get a hearing. The denied H-1B worker is required to wait for a hearing before being able to leave the U.S., but will not have legal permission to work during that wait.

For a more detailed discussion of how harmful this new policy will be in practice, read this piece in Forbes.

• USCIS has new authority to deny applications that are not 100% complete when filed.

Immigration is extremely complex. It is not uncommon for someone to omit a required document when filing an application with USCIS, such as a submitting a foreign language birth certificate without also including a properly certified translation of it into English.

Under long standing policy, ordinarily if any required documents are missing from an application,  USCIS will send the applicant a Request for Evidence (RFE).  In cases where it appears to USCIS that the person is not eligible for the benefit sought,  the agency will issue a notice of intent to deny the application, giving the applicant 30 days to respond.

On July 13, 2018, USCIS announced a new policy, to take effect on September 11, 2018, authorizing USCIS to simply deny incomplete applications in most cases.   Applicants will no longer have a chance to supplement their applications. Not only would they lose their application filing fees if they have to start all over, but if they are then out of status, for example because their visa expired between the time they filed their application and USCIS issued its denial, they in most cases will be ineligible to simply refile a corrected application.   Moreover,  coupled with the new NTA policy discussed above, USCIS can initiate removal proceedings against the individual along with its denial.

What is the impact of these policy changes?

These changes take direct aim at those trying to follow the law and obtain immigration benefits legally.  It is extremely likely that many noncitizens already working for U.S. employers who are filing to extend their temporary work visas or to apply for permanent residency will have their applications derailed as a result of these two policies, resulting in losing their ability to work and being subjected to prolonged, complicated, and prejudicial removal proceedings.  Those seeking residency through immediate family members or naturalization also will be adversely affected.

Immigration law is extremely complex, and it is easy for a person to be out of status.  Some examples include: a student visa holder who drops below a full course load for one trimester; a person who files for an extension of stay whose visa expires while that application is pending; a  temporary worker who falls in love with and marries a U.S. citizen and remains in the U.S. after the seasonal work ends in order to file for residency based on the marriage. Under the new policies, all of these individuals, if they file incomplete applications, would now have their applications denied outright, resulting in USCIS issuing an NTA placing them in removal proceedings.

Removal proceedings are the most costly (for the noncitizen and for U.S. taxpayers alike) and least efficient way to process individuals who may legally have the right to remain or return to the U.S. with a new temporary or permanent residency visa.

These changes will disrupt employment relationships and lead to family separations.  Cases that could have been resolved administratively may take years to resolve in the immigration court.   The new policies will create a chilling effect on noncitizens, causing them not to go to USCIS to seek information or even to apply for immigration benefits for which they may be eligible.

At a time when the country needs more, not less, immigrants to help our economy and communities thrive, these changes take our country in the wrong direction.

 

 

 

 

On August 9, 2018, a new policy memorandum by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) took effect, reversing over 20 years of policy and changing how the government will calculate unlawful presence for noncitizens in the U.S. on nonimmigrant (temporary) F or M student visas, or on J “exchange visitor” visas.

This will affect not only these nonimmigrant visa holders, but also employers who may want to hire them and help them get a work visa or permanent residency.

Under U.S. immigration law, those who violate the terms of their nonimmigrant visas in any way, with limited exceptions, become ineligible  to transition from one nonimmigrant visa to another or to U.S. permanent residency from inside the U.S.   Instead, as a penalty for the visa violation, they must get their new visas at a U.S. consulate abroad, typically in their home countries.

Generally, violating one’s visa makes the visa holder unlawfully present as of the date of the violation.  Also,  anyone unlawfully present for over 180 days who leaves the U.S. for any reason, even to get a visa at the U.S. consulate, cannot return to the U.S. for three years.  A person unlawfully present for one year or more cannot return for 10 years if s/he departs the U.S.   A waiver of these 3 and 10 year penalties is available, but only to those who have a U.S. citizen or permanent resident spouse or parent and meet additional eligibility criteria.

Most F and M foreign students and J exchange visitors are admitted to the U.S. for “duration of status” (D/S), and have no set date by which they are supposed to leave.  This allows a foreign student who entered initially to get her bachelor’s degree to remain without difficulty if she decides then to pursue a master’s degree.   For F, M, and J visa holders with D/S, even if they somehow violated the terms of their visas, under longstanding USCIS policy, they did not accrue any unlawful presence until the date USCIS or an immigration judge officially found  a visa violation.  This meant that in most cases, an F, M or J visa holder would  be able  get permanent residency without needing to leave the U.S., or at least without having accrued enough unlawful presence to trigger the 3 or 10 year bars to reentry.

Effective August 9, 2018, USCIS now takes the position that any F, M, or J visa holder who violates the terms of her/his visa will begin accruing unlawful presence the day after the visa violation.   For those who violated their visas before the policy change, unlawful presence starts accruing automatically on August 9, 2018.  A USCIS or immigration judge finding of a violation will no longer be needed for unlawful presence to begin.  Some exceptions will apply to a student who petitions for reinstatement to student status after violating his/her visa.

• How will this rule change prejudice F, M and J visa holders, and affect employers who want them as employees?

It is extremely easy for foreign students and exchange visitors to violate the terms of their visas.  For example, a student who drops below a full course load for one semester, or who has an allowed on-campus job but just once exceeds the 20 hours per week work limit, would have violated her or his student visa.  Under the new policy, unlawful presence will start to accrue, without the student necessarily even being aware of it, on the day the extra hours were worked or the first day that the student’s course load dropped below full-time.  If, more than 180 days later, the student leaves the U.S., for instance to visit family during the summer break, s/he will trigger the 3 year bar and be unable to return to complete her or his studies.

Similarly, suppose the student has not left the U.S., but the violation occurred during the student’s junior year.  The student continues her/his studies, graduates, and begins optional practical training (OPT) with an employer.   The employer wants to keep the student as a permanent employee and petitions USCIS to help her/him get residency through the job.  When the student finally goes to the permanent residency interview, under the new policy, USCIS will rule that s/he violated her status years ago and deny the residency application.  The student instead would have to apply for an immigrant visa at the appropriate U.S. consulate abroad, but doing so will trigger the 10 bar to returning as soon as s/he leaves the U.S. to attend a consular interview.   The employer will lose a valued employee because s/he cannot return for 10 years, and is unlikely to be eligible for a waiver.   This change will also apply to the principal visa holder’s spouse or child, even if that person never violated her/his visa in any way.

You can get more information on this rule change and its impact here.

The U.S. labor supply is aging and our country needs immigrant workers.  But rather than ease the path for F, M, and J visa holders to be able to stay in the U.S., the administration is creating yet another barrier.    In contrast, countries such as Canada are dealing with their shrinking labor pool by liberalizing their immigration laws in order to make it easier and faster for foreign higher education and graduate students to gain permanent status in the country following their graduation.   It is likely not a coincidence that Canada is seeing double digit increases in the number of foreign students enrolling at Canadian universities

Once again, an immigration reform by the current administration is at odds with the country’s economic reality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the branch of the Department of Homeland Security charged with enforcing the immigration laws in the interior of the United States, recently announced that it has stepped up the rate of its worksite enforcement efforts  in order to “instill a culture of compliance.”

In a July 24, 2018 statement, ICE announced that in the first 9 months of FY 2018, it had conducted nearly 6100 worksite investigations, a more than 350% increase compared to the entirety of FY 2017.  It also arrested 1659 employers during the same period, compared to 311 in all of FY 2017.

Maine employers should ensure that they are fully complying with the I-9 requirements, but at the same time, are not discriminating against prospective employees due to national origin or documentation presented.   Maine employers who need a refresher on this area of the law should speak with their immigration counsel for legal advice, or can contact MeBIC.

The Center for Workforce Research and Information of the Maine Department of Labor (DoL) issued its Employment Outlook to 2026 report projecting job and demographic trends that should concern all those hoping for a growing  Maine economy.

The report projects a net gain of only 94 jobs between 2016 and 2026, with shrinkage in office administrative and support positions, retail, and production jobs offset by gains in healthcare related professions.   Unsurprisingly, the over-65 year old population is projected to grow substantially, while the number of 16 to 65 working age people is expected to shrink.

This portends a stagnant economy, unless the state takes affirmative measures to attract new businesses and encourage in-state expansion of existing ones.  But without a growing labor supply, businesses may look to grow elsewhere – in other states, or in other countries where they can get the labor they need.

The DoL’s report underscores the alarm sounded in multiple prior reports, most recently one released last month, that Maine needs to aggressively grow its workforce, including by attracting, retaining and integrating immigrants. 

While federal immigration policy desperately needs reform, there is much that Maine can do at the state and local levels to attract immigrants currently in other states, and to ensure that immigrants already in Maine choose to stay here and can maximize their potential.

In 2019, Maine will have a new legislature and a new governor.  Maine’s business community and economic leaders should insist that those policy makers take steps to show clearly that Maine is welcoming to immigrants.

Over 700,000 young adults who have been educated in the U.S. and are part of our communities and workforce are still living lives in limbo waiting for the fate of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to be resolved.

The administration rescinded DACA effective March 6, 2018.   Since that date, those who already had DACA status have been able to renew their DACA only due to decisions from federal courts in California and New York finding the rationale for rescinding DACA unlawful, and ordering the government to continue to process DACA renewal applications.  However, these decisions did not order the government to process new applications from first-time applicants, leaving those who met all of DACA’s eligibility criteria except the requirement to be at least age 15 to apply, without the opportunity to gain DACA’s protections and work authorization once they reached their 15^th birthdays.

On April 24, 2018, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a ruling in NAACP vs. Trump, once again finding that the government’s rationale for rescinding DACA was unlawful, but for the first time, ordering the government to process DACA applications from initial applicants. This decision was applicable nationwide. The judge stayed his decision for 90 days, to allow the Government time to further explain its rationale.

On August 3, 2018, having received the government’s response, the judge in NAACP v. Trump reaffirmed his prior decision, but stayed his ruling for a further 20 days to allow the government time to appeal, which appears likely.

On August 8, 2018, oral argument will be held in another DACA case to be heard by the same U.S. District Court Judge in Texas who had previously struck down proposed programs under the Obama Administration that would have expanded DACA and also provided protections for some parents of U.S. citizen children. Filed by the Texas Attorney General and several other states, the Texas v. Nielson case challenges the legality of the DACA program, rather than the legality of the administration’s decision to end DACA, and asks the court to enjoin DACA.

In July, a coalition of Texas business leaders, including the Texas Association of Business, several chambers of commerce from Houston, Austin, El Paso, and San Antonio among others, as well as businesses such as IBC Bank and Southwest and United Airlines filed a “friend of the court” brief expressing their strong opposition to the Texas A.G.’s effort to end DACA.   They noted that more than 15% of DACA holders live in Texas, and explained the myriad ways those with DACA contribute to Texas’s economy as entrepreneurs, employers, employees, consumers and taxpayers.  They argued that the significant and unrecoverable costs to Texas employers, communities, GDP and tax coffers must tip the balance of equities in favor of not enjoining DACA.

Should the Texas federal court block DACA, there will be a conflict among the federal courts. The administration has already signaled that it will immediately seek a stay of the other federal court decisions requiring the government to continue processing DACA applications, which could lead to DACA holders becoming undocumented and unemployable when their current DACA status expires.  An injunction in Texas v. Nieson also sets the stage for the Supreme Court to consider DACA’s legality.

In short, with three federal courts finding that the administration’s rescission of DACA was illegal, and with a fourth lawsuit hoping to strike down DACA’s legality, the nearly 800,000 DACA holders in the U.S. have no clarity about whether they will be able to remain and contribute to this country, which for all practical purposes is their true home.   Not only are they in limbo, but the U.S. economy is too due to their tremendous impact, as spokespersons for business and economic interests nationwide, ranging from chambers of commerce, to high tech leaders, to the Koch brothers continue to make clear.

The responsibility lies with Congress to provide a clear path forward to permanent residency for DACA holders. To date, Congress has been unable to get the job done, and President Trump continues to hold DACA holders hostage to a restrictionist agenda that would slash family-based immigration and build a costly and likely ineffective border wall.

Until Washington gets it done, it appears the fate of those with DACA will continue to be in the hands of the courts.

Update: As noted here, the Census Bureau’s own Center for Economic Studies has concluded in an August 2018 report that adding a question about citizenship status to the 2020 Census “would lead to a ….lower quality population count.”

The National Academies of Sciences-Engineering-Medicine also filed a comment cogently laying out the case for why adding the citizenship question to Census 2020 would “impair the quality of the 2020 census as a whole.”  Read their comment here.

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Census 2020, the Constitutionally-mandated decennial count of the U.S. population, is nearly around the corner.

Obtaining an accurate count through the census is critical to the correct apportionment of Congressional representatives among the states, as well as of federal funds for public education, housing, healthcare, housing, transportation, road construction, community development block grant funds, etc. Additionally, census data is widely used by the public, private, academic and nonprofit sectors across the country to help inform social science and other research. Moreover, the data is useful in business, as highlighted in these recent editorial pieces in Forbes and Bloomberg.

Because accuracy is the most important aspect of the census, immigration status is irrelevant.   Whether one is a U.S. citizen, a permanent resident, a person with an application in process, a person with Temporary Protected Status or DACA, or even lacking immigration documents altogether, ideally, everyone in the U.S. should be counted.

But Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has proposed adding a question asking if census respondents are citizens or noncitizens.

In the current U.S. immigration climate, the addition of this question guarantees that the census will undercount the foreign-born population living in the U.S.  Even U.S. citizens living with noncitizens may well decline to answer Census 2020.  In an era of eroding due process rights and messages of outright hostility and disparagement of immigrants from the highest echelons of the administration, it would be unsurprising that immigrant families would distrust a Census that to them appears to be ferreting out who is a citizen and who isn’t, while also knowing down to block-level data where they live.

An undercount will hurt everyone in the U.S., including people in Maine. At least seventeen states have sued the Federal Government to block the addition of the citizenship question to Census 2020.  (Maine is not one of them).  Those cases are still ongoing.

However, there is also a public comment period providing an opportunity to oppose  the addition of citizenship question to Census 2020.   Comments are due by August 7, 2018.

Several national organizations have made it easy to submit comments. Here’s a link to one of them from the nonpartisan League of Women Voters.

PLEASE CONSIDER SUBMITTING A COMMENT.  It will only take a minute of your time to do.  The comment is already written, but you can also customize it before you click “submit”.

The Census Bureau has not asked  about citizenship status since the 1950 census, when the question was removed following prior misuse of census data (it was used to help identify Japanese Americans for internment during World War II).   That was a wise course that should continue if the nation wants an accurate population count.  MeBIC has submitted a comment opposing inclusion of the citizenship question.

Maine has long welcomed asylum seekers, and they are critical members of  our labor force as Maine’s native born working age population shrinks.  Work permission is essential for asylum seekers’ survival, since the immigration process can take years.   Asylum seekers in Maine routinely wait four years for their asylum application interviews, and in many cases obtaining a final decision can take several  years more.

Federal law requires asylum seekers to wait 150 days after filing their asylum applications before they are allowed to request their work permits.  By law, the government must then process their work permit applications within 30 days, so that 180 days after requesting asylum, they will have their work authorization in hand.

In practice, that simply never happens.   Asylum seekers routinely wait two, three and four months after filing their work permit applications before they finally receive their work permits.   This is not only demoralizing and economically debilitating for them, but is also a complete waste of human capital when Maine needs every worker it can get.

On July 26, 2018, in Rosario vs. USCIS, a nationwide class action lawsuit, a federal court  ordered the government to comply with the law and adjudicate all asylum seekers’ work permit applications within 30 days.

This will allow Maine’s asylum seekers to get to work months sooner than they have been, benefiting them and all of Maine.

 

The Federal government was given until July 10, 2018 to reunite the children under age five in its custody that it had taken away from their parents who sought asylum at our southern border.   At a status conference in the Federal Court on July 10th, the Government made clear it had fallen far short of that mandate.

Of the 102 children under age five in its custody that the government had identified, only four had been reunited with their parents since the Court ordered reunification two weeks previously.   The government noted that its failure to comply fully was due in part to having already deported some of these children’s parents (without reuniting them first), and in part to applying standards used in cases of minors who arrive unaccompanied by any adult.

On July 11th, the Court ordered the government to cease applying excessive standards inappropriate to children that the government itself rendered unaccompanied by taking them from their parents against the parents’ will (and sometimes without their knowledge while the parents were in court).  The Court ordered the government to reunite 59 of these young children with their parents by the end of the day.

The government must provide an update to the Court on July 12th.

 

Two recent columns in Bloomberg you may have missed.

An op-ed  looks back at the Great Recession, and at economists’ analyses regarding whether legal changes that caused sharp drops in immigration may have played a part, by shrinking both the labor supply and also consumer demand and demand for housing.

A separate column points out that labor shortages in the U.S. are compelling employers to raise wages and hire populations they might have overlooked in the past.  He notes that “demand for workers simply outstrips what the U.S. population can meet”, and that immigration must be part of the solution.