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The Biden Administration must do more to protect DACA than invite Dreamers to the White House and streamline the bureaucratic process that grants temporary residency to immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally as children, recipients of the program say.

So far, the president has given little more than the lip service and the typical rhetoric politicians offer in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, said Ricardo Morones Torres, an Austin, Texas, resident and law school graduate who has enjoyed DACA protections since 2013.

Theres always talk but not enough action, Torres said. We are not seeing any heavy lifting or pushing for immigration reform.

On May 14, Biden met with Dreamers a term gleaned from previous Congressional Dream Act proposals to prevent deportations and grant working status to immigrants who grew up in the U.S. to express his support for that program, for migrant farmworkers, Temporary Protective Status holders and other immigrants considered essential to the U.S. economy.

The president and the Dreamers also discussed the continued need for immigration reform and the White Houses strong support for the Dream and Promise Act and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, two bills that have already passed the House with bipartisan support and are awaiting action in the Senate, a White House statement said.

Both measures would provide paths to citizenship for DACA recipients while enabling the government to reject applicants considered threats to national security, according to an analysis by the National Law Review.

And the presidents U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, introduced in Congress in February, would make about 11 million undocumented immigrants eligible for lawful protective immigrant, or LPI, status. Immigrants working in essential services also would be eligible while immigrants who came into the U.S. as children, including Dreamers, would qualify for lawful permanent status.

As those measures wind their way through the legislative process, the existing DACA program is being bolstered at the procedural and regulatory levels, Felicia Escobar Carrillo, chief of staff in the office of the director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said during a recent webinar.

We are actually working to fortify and preserve DACA as directed by a presidential memo that was signed on Jan. 20, she said.

One aspect of the program that needs to be addressed is the date of U.S. entry to be eligible, said Greg Smith, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel and co-founder of an immigrant services ministry in Fredericksburg, Va., that offers legal services.

The main difficulty with DACA today is that very few young Dreamers have been in the U.S. since June 15, 2007, which was the original and still current starting date for continuous presence a person has to prove in order to qualify for DACA.When the Obama administration first established DACA in 2012, proving continuous presence in the U.S. since 2007 wasnt that difficult.But now in 2021, it is, he said.

DACA applicants usually are relieved that the program continues to exist, Smith said, because it exists to provide some shelter from possible deportation, not to mentionproviding them with an Employment Authorization Document (work permit) so they can earn money without fearing government reprisal.

But he also is curious about long-term solutions. Something I would like to know is where Congress is in terms of making DACA, or something like it for Dreamers, permanent.

DACA recipients and their families remain vulnerable as long as such questions have to be asked, said Hector, a 29-year-old Dreamer who lives in Fredericksburg, Va.

Hector said the program has opened doors, enabling him to get a drivers license, earn a degree from Bluefield College in Virginia and land a job as a payroll compliance auditor.

For me and a lot of DACA recipients, the reason for being in DACA is to allow us to progress more and more as our goals become bigger and bigger, he said.

We want to push the administration to act more aggressively.

But there is always another obstacle, and for me and other recipients right now that obstacle is citizenship, Hector added. We want to push the administration to act more aggressively.

In Austin, Torres agreed the sense of urgency he and other Dreamers feel about the pace of the White House and Congress on immigration reform stems from the blessing DACA has been to them and their families.

Torres, who is studying for the Texas bar exam and hopes to become a prosecutor, said he doesnt want to return to the fear that plagued him throughout his childhood.

I was fully aware of my illegal status even at the age of 4 because crossing the border with your parents while the Border Patrol is chasing you makes you fully aware, he said. I have always lived in fear because I knew we didnt have the legal status to be here, so into my teenage years it was always a concern.

The fears resurfaced for a time when former President Donald Trump attempted to end the DACA program. His efforts were overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020.

Hence, Torres and other Dreamers are doing what they can to share their stories and to urge the White House to drive harder for the codification of DACA and other immigrant protections.

Our main concern is that the whole immigration issue is going to be placed on the back burner like it was under the Obama administration, or that President Biden and congressional Democrats are not going to push hard enough for an immigration deal, Torres said.

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Dreamers want White House and Congress to do more for their protection - Baptist News Global

Washington (May 28, 2021) U.S. Senator Edward J. Markey(D-Mass.) released the following statement today after Senate Republicansoverwhelmingly voted to oppose debate on the bipartisan January 6thCommission.

The U.S. Capitol and our very democracy came under attackon January 6, and instead of committing to an investigation of how and why itoccurred, Senate Republicans balked, saidSenator Markey. Police officers lost their lives, security was compromised,the Vice President could have been killed, but Republicans would rather embracethe Big Lie than get to the real truth. It is crystal clear that the vastmajority of Senate Republicans are unwilling to try and legislate in good faithon anything of importance to the American people. Unless we abolish thefilibuster, there will be no progress on any agenda focused on justice,fairness, or basic survival.

Leader McConnell is engaging in the same obstructionisttactics he used under the Obama administration to stop progress in ourcountry, continued Senator Markey. Wehave seen this movie before, but this time we must write a different ending andfinally rid our system of the Jim Crow vestige that is the filibuster. TheAmerican people are crying out for action on a range of life-saving issues:climate action to meet the scope and scale of the crisis we face, protectingand expanding voting rights across America, closing background check loopholes,passingcomprehensive immigration reform, and improving our health caresystem. Protecting the filibuster is protecting the broken status quo, and wecannot allow that to happen any longer.

Read the original here:
Senator Markey on GOP Filibuster of Jan. 6 Commission: This Is Why We Must Abolish the Filibuster - Ed Markey

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) "I came to the United States when I was very small so I can't remember exactly how old I was."

Denisse Amezquita said her parents brought here legally when she was around three years old.

"So a tourist visa we came in with a visa already on us," she said.

Diana Ojeda was also brought to the States using a Visa.

"My mom brought me actually using her friend's baby's visa."

Both are undergraduates hoping to become attorneys.

Denisse said she may never see her grandmother again.

"If the time comes where she does pass away I wouldn't be able to go visit her funeral."

She is a DACA recipient.

Diana said she's currently undocumented but pursuing DACA status herself.

"If anything happens our family is definitely split," said Jesus Lucero.

Lucero said they're undocumented, brought to the country when they were four.

"My dad has been picked up by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), my younger brother has been a target of Customs and Border Protection in the past."

Jesus said their family has endured tough days during the Trump presidency.

"During the pandemic, right around mother's day...when my brothers DACA had expired, (they) threaten to arrest him again."

"Sleepless nights for me and my parents," Amezquita said.

This group of undergrads are among the 400,000 reported to be undocumented or under some migrant status studying in the country today.

Working toward their goals under a shadow of constant fear, for Denisse, fear that her parents could be sent away.

"One day if they were to be deported, you know I would be the head of the household, and trying to figure out how to pay bills, how to do college, how to raise my younger sibling, take care of my grandmother."

She said right now she can't even get work.

"Trying to get a job where it doesn't require to look at my Social (Security Number)."

Diana said can't make a living either.

"I don't drive and can't work."

A situation, she said, she would change if she could.

Jesus said their own fate rests in the hands of immigration courts.

"The only hope we have is that the wait list gets shortened, that processing times shrink."

As students, they have one other hope, Scholarships A-Z.

"We're connecting you to the resources that do exist and helping them create a plan."

A plan, Dario Andrade Mendoza said, will help them achieve, at the very least, their educational aspirations.

Dario said as more of their members become professionals, in Denisse and Diana's case, attorneys, it grows their community.

"(They) will actually create a path that then we are able to guide others, future students," Andrade Mendoza said.

Denisse, Diana and Jesus all said they hope to see some measure of immigration reform that provides a path for them to become citizens.

"Just like with daca, we didn't imagine that it was going to be reinstated and all the sudden it was, so anything can happen we just have to keep our hopes up." Denisse said.

They say one administration may or may not make things more difficult

"I just hope that the Biden administration helps get the act together," Ojeda said.

They all say they've learned they'll need to rely less on who is President and more so on each other and their own wills to get by.

"My goal isn't necessarily to adjust my status, it's for the government to adjust how they see us, because I don't think there's anything wrong with me," Jesus said.

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Uncertain futures: experiences of DACA recipient and undocumented students - KGUN

The Home Office has launched a scheme to create a digital border as part of its plans for immigration reform.

The governments New plan for immigration: legal migration and border control sets out how it aims to achieve a fully digital end-to-end experience in all aspects of immigration and border crossings.

Over the next four years, we will implement transformational change for everyone who interacts with the immigration system and crosses the border, said the strategy document.

We will deliver a fully end-to-end digital customer experience for people from the way they apply online, how they prove their identity, how they provide evidence that they meet the relevant criteria, to how they receive and use proof of their status to cross the border and demonstrate any entitlements in the UK.

This includes delivering a digital system allowing for online evidence of immigration status.

In addition to reforming the immigration routes, we are continuing to deliver a digital system by removing the use of physical documents to demonstrate status, the document said. We will make further improvements to how applicants access and prove their immigration status to others.

This system has already been put in place for European Economic Area (EEA) nationals to apply for the right to remain in the UK post-Brexit.

We will continue to improve the online immigration status service, and we will enhance our support offer for those who need assistance to use this service, the document said.

We will be taking a phased approach as we move to a fully digital system. As part of this, we are looking at further ways to remove physical documents from the process and streamline the system, such as potentially removing the need for separate vignettes and biometric residence permits, taking out the cost and time for the user and the Home Office and improving security.

The government has a long-standing history with border IT. The Home Office originally launched ane-Borders programmein 2003, aiming to improve the use of information to track people across borders. The programme cost 830m and failed to deliver.

It then launched a replacement programme, Digital Services at the Border (DSAB), in 2014. The original aim was for DSAB to be completed by March 2019, delivering three main systems: Advance Border Control, Border Crossing, and Advanced Freight Targeting Capability.

These would replace two legacy systems: Semaphore, which was delivered by IBM in 2004, and the 26-year-old Warnings Index system. However, during a programme reset in 2019, the Home Office made the decision to upgrade and improve Semaphore.

By March 2019, when the programme was due to be fully operational, only one of the three systems was in live operation Border Crossing and even that was only run as a pilot in up to eight ports.

The latest document said the Border Crossing system has now been piloted and is being rolled out nationally.

The improved capability enables improvements in the operational process at the border, delivering customer and security benefits, it said. By summer 2021, all Border Force staff will have the ability, if required, to check at the PCP [primary control point] whether an individual has applied for, or been granted, status under the EU Settlement Scheme, should they need to do so.

The [border crossing] capability will be extended to the e-gates as they are upgraded during 2021. This modernised system will also bolster our networks with partner agencies when one of their persons of interest is encountered at the border.

The government will also put in place an electronic travel authorisation system, similar to the USs ESTA system as part of a wider universal permission to travel requirement, which will mean everyone wishing to travel to the UK (except British and Irish citizens) will need to seek permission in advance of travel.

To deliver this system, the government is planning to work with academia and technology suppliers on creating innovative solutions for the border, and develop border standards for technology and infrastructure.

In a speech at a conference hosted by liberal conservative think-tank Bright Blue, home secretary Priti Patel said: The UKs immigration system is broken, and we will fix it.

Our new, fully digital border will provide the ability to count people in and count people out of the country. We will have a far clearer view of who is here and whether they should be, and we will act when they are not.

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UK to have digital border by end of 2025 - ComputerWeekly.com

Congressional Democrats and the Biden White House have made no secret of their interest in passing a sweeping immigration reform package. Among the biggest hurdles, of course, is the same obstacle to passing nearly all legislation: Senate Republicans will try to block any reform bill, and coming up with a 60-vote supermajority is practically impossible.

But what if the Democratic majority could circumvent a GOP filibuster by using the budget reconciliation process -- the same method the party used to pass the COVID relief package?

In early April, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested Dems are prepared to do exactly that. Two weeks later, a group of Hispanic lawmakers met privately with President Joe Biden, and after the discussion, Rep. Darren Soto (D-Fla.) told Politico that Biden told the group he generally "supports passing certain immigration reforms by reconciliation if we can't get the 10 Republican votes."

Last week, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the #3 Democrat in the Senate leadership, raised a few eyebrows with a press release in which she said, "After years of working to reach agreement on a solution, it's clear to me we can't miss the opportunity to act in this critical moment. We need to look at every legislative path possible to get comprehensive immigration reform done -- including through reconciliation."

It's against this backdrop that the New York Times reported overnight that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is "quietly considering" the procedural gambit.

Mr. Schumer has privately told members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in recent weeks that he is "actively exploring" whether it would be possible to attach a broad revision of immigration laws to President Biden's infrastructure plan and pass it through a process known as budget reconciliation, according to two people briefed on his comments.

It's worth emphasizing that this would likely be Plan B for Democratic leaders. Plan A is the ongoing negotiating process underway among a bipartisan group of 15 senators, exploring the possibility of a compromise agreement.

Such a deal appears unlikely. Indeed, the Times' report added that observers have watched the negotiations "drag on with little agreement in sight." There's no great mystery as to why.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), one of the 15 senators involved in the bipartisan talks, said, "Before we can do anything meaningful on immigration, we're going to have to deal with the current crisis at the border."

If this seems like hollow rhetoric, it's not your imagination. For much of the last two decades, conservative Republicans have said there's a "crisis" that needs to be resolved before GOP lawmakers will consider reform legislation. And every time border security is strengthened, those same Republicans insist it's not enough.

Indeed, let's not forget that GOP members promised then-President Barack Obama that they'd consider a comprehensive immigration solution if he vastly improved border security. The Democrat held up his end of the bargain; the Senate passed the "Gang of Eight" bill; but House Republicans ended up killing the reform effort anyway, offering nothing as an alternative. (See Chapter 6 of my book.)

The GOP position has a Zeno's paradox-like problem: There's no way to ever actually reach the point at which Republicans are satisfied that the "crisis" has been fully resolved. As Greg Sargent noted this morning, "Does anybody imagine there will come a point when Republicans will say, 'Okay, Biden's totally got the border under control now, so let's get serious about working with Democrats on legalizing a lot of immigrants'? Of course not."

But then there's an entirely different question to consider: Is it even procedurally possible to pursue immigration reform through the budget reconciliation process, which is supposed to be limited to matters of taxes and spending? I've been skeptical, but the Times' report included an important detail from 16 years ago that I'd forgotten about:

A team of immigration activists and researchers as well as congressional aides is exploring the question, digging into the best way to present their case to [Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough].... They have found past precedents, including one from 2005, in which changes to immigration policy were allowed as part of a budget-reconciliation package, and they are tallying up the budgetary effects of the immigration proposals which total in the tens of billions. Researchers have dredged up supportive quotes from Republicans from 2005, when they won signoff for including a measure to recapture unused visas for high-skilled workers in a reconciliation package.

There's no shortage of unanswered questions related to process, politics, and procedure, and it'll take a while before the answers come into focus. But for now, it's clear that Democratic leaders are committed to the effort, and the door to immigration reform is not yet closed. Watch this space.

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Democrats eye a creative approach to passing immigration reform - MSNBC