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The COVID-19 pandemic had a dramatic effect on immigration law, disrupting policies that were already shaken up by the Trump Administration during its first three years. Practitioners who advise on immigration law now must keep up with changes wrought by the pandemic as well as near-daily immigration news from the Biden Administration.

For the previous Administration, COVID created the opportunity to significantly curtail legal immigration, says immigration law expert Austin T. Fragomen, Jr., Chairman of the Executive Committee at Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen, & Loewy, LLP and co-author of Fragomen on Immigration Fundamentals: A Guide to Law and Practice, Fifth Edition, available from PLI Press. In a recent article in the PLI Chronicle, Fragomen outlines the immigration actions taken by the Biden Administration in its early days and anticipates changes to come.

An emphasis on prioritizing immigration reform this early in a Presidents tenure is startling, given this topics traditional status as a third rail in American politics, Fragomen observes. Nevertheless, the new administration has forged ahead on issues including DACA, the travel ban, employment and more.

Click to read Fragomens article, What Can We Expect on Immigration from the Biden Administration? For more insights and perspectives for the legal community, visit the PLI Chronicle on PLI PLUS. Visit PLI.edu for immigration-related programs and publications.

Practising Law Institute is a nonprofit learning organization dedicated to keeping attorneys and other professionals at the forefront of knowledge and expertise. PLI is chartered by the Regents of the University of the State of New York and was founded in 1933 by Harold P. Seligson. The organization provides the highest quality, accredited, continuing legal and professional education programs in a variety of formats which are delivered by more than 4,000 volunteer faculty including prominent lawyers, judges, investment bankers, accountants, corporate counsel, and U.S. and international government regulators. PLI publishes a comprehensive library of Treatises, Course Handbooks, Answer Books and Journals also available through the PLI PLUS online platform. The essence of PLIs mission is its commitment to the pro bono community. View PLIs upcoming live webcasts here.

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Immigration Reform During A Pandemic? Biden Administration Comes Out Swinging - Above the Law

In February, President Biden proposed immigration reform legislation that would allow some noncitizens who do not have immigration status to become permanent residents and, ultimately, citizens. Proposed legislation would also make changes to the U.S. asylum system, which provides refuge for those unable or unwilling to return to their home country for various reasons.

As the President and Congress consider immigration reform, we highlight some of our prior work on immigration benefits and enforcement programs and ways to improve them in todays WatchBlog.

Asylum and temporary protected status

U.S. immigration law allows noncitizens to legally seek travel to or remain in the United States, including various forms of humanitarian relief or protection from removal, such as asylum and temporary protected status.

Noncitizens granted Temporary Protected Status are authorized to work in the U.S. as long as their status lasts. However, the documents demonstrating work authorization to employers can expire. DHS gives extensions and has notified people about them in various ways, such as via notices in the Federal Register and mailed letters in some cases. But,not all of DHSs guidance tells employers that these mailed extension letters are acceptable proof of work authorization, and some noncitizens have reportedly wrongly lost their jobs over this. As such, in a 2020 report, we recommended that USCIS update its guidance to consistently identify the ways it communicates extensions of employment authorization.

Immigration enforcement

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducts immigration enforcement actions, including arrests, detentions, and removals of noncitizens for violations of U.S. immigration law. In a December 2019 report, we found that the numbers of arrests, detentions, and removals of noncitizens varied during calendar years 2015 through 2018, and increased overall for the period.

Enforcement and Removal Operations Administrative Arrests, Detentions, and Removals,2015 through 2018

Noncitizens who serve in the U.S. militarysuch as lawful permanent residents who are eligible to enlistmay also be detained and removed from the country for reasons such as controlled substance violations or conviction of an aggravated felony. Available data indicated that approximately 250 noncitizen veterans were placed in removal proceedings from fiscal year 2013 through 2018. In June 2019, we reviewed ICEs process for handling cases of noncitizen veterans. We found that ICE did not consistently follow its own policies for veterans, which may have resulted in removing some veterans without the level of review and approval ICE required.

For more information on the enforcement programs under DHS and our recommendations, check our reports.

More:
US Immigration Laws and Enforcement - Government Accountability Office

Looking into Mexico at the Gateway International Bridge, Brownsville, Tex. (Chandan Khanna, AFP via Getty Images)

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Guillermo Bustos migrated to the United States when he was a child. He spent his formative years in Los Angeles, where he graduated from Huntington Park High School in 2006. Guillermos entire family and life is in California. He was raised by his mother, Maria Bustos, a lawful permanent resident, and his older sister and brother-in-law, who are both US citizens and small-business owners. In 2014, Guillermo was granted Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era policy that allowed undocumented people who had been brought to the United States as children to get a work permit and avoid the threat of deportation. He was on a path to having a stable documentation status in this country.

But two years later, Guillermo was convicted of a felony for being a passenger in a car that was carrying drugs. Even after serving his sentence, Guillermo now sits in a precarious position: Because of a double punishment written into American immigration law, his conviction bars him from legal status and citizenship, and he now faces permanent banishment from his entire family and the country that he has called home for 20 years. He has been caught in a punitive part of the US immigration system that advocates call the prison-to-deportation pipeline.

When President Joe Biden was elected last year, there was hope that he would put an end to the discriminatory immigration policies of the Trump administration, and perhaps even undo some of the overly aggressive policies of previous administrations, both Democrat and Republican. His administration has canceled Trumps travel bans and reversed the remain in Mexico policy. But so far, the legislation put forward during the Biden administration does little to undo the prison-to-deportation pipeline that has put immigrants like Guillermo in its sights. Perhaps the most significant piece of immigration legislation of the Biden administration to date, the American Dream and Promise Act (HR 6), voted on March 18, 2021, in the House of Representatives, continues the decades-old, bipartisan tradition of targeting immigrant communities with an ever-present specter of deportation. By failing to remove criminalization barsthe parts of our immigration code that make conviction of a whole host of crimes grounds for deportationand expanding the power of the Department of Homeland Security to deny legal status to tens of thousands of immigrants, HR 6 categorically excludes people brought to the United States as children from the opportunity ever to legalize their status. Representatives Jess Chuy Garcia, Pramila Jayapal, Ayanna Pressley, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have put forward amendments to remove these provisions and have gained significant congressional support, but so far they remain in the bill.

As public defenders active in the Public Defenders Coalition for Immigrant Justice, we know that while there is undoubtedly an urgent need to create avenues to legal status for millions of immigrants, HR 6s criminalization bars deepen a dangerous divide in our nations immigration system. With an approach reminiscent of the Clinton administrations punitive tough on crime policies that fueled the mass incarceration crisis and the Obama administrations felons, not families enforcement guidelines that led to the deportation of 3 million people, Congress is yet again defining those who are deserving based on labels applied by the often arbitrary and inequitable criminal legal system. Fueling the jail-to-deportation pipeline with its criminalization bars, HR 6 places the power to withhold citizenship in the hands of the local police and prosecutors who dictate the arrest, charges, pleas, and sentences that the bill would enshrineeven as our nation struggles to deal with the fact that the application of these discretionary powers is deeply informed by ZIP code and skin color.

Despite the growing awareness of the anti-Blackness and racism that plague policing and the criminal legal systems, our immigration protocols rely on those very same systems to define who is worthy of legal status. As with the criminal legal system, HR 6s sweeping and punitive criminalization bars would disproportionately punish poor Black people and other communities of color. For example, the bill bars immigrants from obtaining lawful status, with very limited exception, if they have been convicted at any time in their lives of any three misdemeanors, which include offenses such as jaywalking, disorderly conduct, street vending without a license, shoplifting, and trespass. As public defenders, we know that rap sheets with multiple offenses like these reflect over-policing of impoverished communities, where people are arrested and charged with multiple offenses for one incident, and often held in jail to obtain a guilty plea. In states where ICE courthouse arrests are permitted, many immigrants are pressured into a plea bargain rather than risk ICE arrest, which under HR 6 would render them ineligible for the legal status that would have afforded them the security to pursue trial.

HR 6 also bars any person who has been convicted of a single felony from applying for lawful status. Felonies can include a second shoplifting offense, possession of a small amount of drugs, petty theft, joyriding, and failure to disclose even the most nominal income on a single application for public assistance with their childs food or medical care. Felony convictions already disenfranchise millions of US citizens from voting, and now Congress similarly would disenfranchise immigrants from ever becoming US citizens, even those who have lived in the United States since childhood.Related Article

HR 6 also includes a secondary review process that expands the DHSs power to deny applications under the guise of public safety, a well-known pretext for targeting immigrants with criminal legal system contact. It is inexplicable that Congress aims to give even more power to a federal agency that has woefully flouted the rule of law, openly defied federal court orders, and exacerbated the Covid-19 pandemic throughout the past four years. Congress should not reward the DHSs misbehavior by entrusting it with more power. To the contrary, Congress should recognize that federal immigration agencies enforce civil regulations, yet often employ tactics that leave communities and the public far less safe.

Under this administration, America has an opportunity to lift up immigrant communities by building inclusive pathways to legal status and US citizenship. Now is the time to end the jail-to-deportation pipeline by introducing legislation to help communities and families like Guillermos achieve stability in this country. We urge members of Congress and the Biden administration to reject the criminalization bars in HR 6, and to ensure that all proposed immigration reform, including the US Citizenship Act, does not exclude our countrys most policed and vulnerable communities.

The Public Defenders Coalition for Immigrant Justice includes public defender offices representing noncitizens in criminal and immigration proceedings across the country including Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.

Link:
Biden Has a Chance to End the Jail-to-Deportation Pipeline - The Nation

John Oliver kicked off tonights episode with a reminder that Prince Philip, the British royal who died last week, is married to his own cousin.

Its true. Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth are cousins who later got married also known as a Giuliani meet-cute, joked Oliver.

The host continued to crop-dust on Florida congressman Matt Gaetz and the federal investigation into his alleged sex trafficking. The latest development involves The Daily Beasts discovery of Gaetzs Venmo transaction history detailing a $900 payment through a liaison to three women under notes like Tuition and School. Oliver offered some sage advice to the now-embarrassed politician: Venmo is for one thing and one thing only: passing judgments on friends spending habits while obsessing over wild financial mysteries.

Oliver then turned his lens onto the American refugee admission program. After eviscerating Trump over his discriminatory eligibility caps, Oliver likened Bidens inaction to his incoherent speech and played clips of White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki avoiding journalists questions regarding Bidens pledge to increase the refugee admission caps.

Rest assured were committed to getting you to Orlando eventually, we just cant tell where your plane is, why its taking so long or what year you might arrive, said Oliver as he mimed what Psaki would sound like as a Spirit Airlines gate agent.

Oliver goes on to explain the dire limbo many refugees exist in due to the presidents passivity. More than 35,000 already [are] approved for resettlement here, but until Biden signs that determination, they are beholden to Trumps low admissions ceiling and bullshit racist rules. Per Oliver, the refugees resettlement approval exists for a certain amount of time. If they unfortunately expire, refugees must start the paperwork all over again. And, even with approval, refugees cant seem to currently board planes to their approved resettlement city. After Oliver describes all of this, he explains the simple solution is the swift stroke of the presidents pen.

Its past time for him to look deep into his own, pick up a f*cking pen and do the right thing, emphasized Oliver.

Needing some comedic relief after a diatribe about a serious international crisis, a montage of the greatest questions asked on Yahoo! Answers plays onscreen. The silliness of each question is shown against a background of luscious shots of nature with the tune of Cello Suite No. 1 by Bach playing.

Oliver then spends the majority of his program dissecting the lack of federal oversight on nursing homes and assisted living facilities. The highlight of this segment includes a news clip in which a wife and daughter explain how they learned to perform in-home medical care through trial and error.

There are certain things that you can expect to learn by trial-and-error: solving a puzzle, learning to pronounce the name of Tambourine Saturday, or choosing a haircut. But providing medical care should not be one of those things, Oliver said.

Oliver notes that people who dont send their loved one to a facility perform services on their own, typically unpaid. Oliver offers a staggering statistic: the total amount of lost wages of family caregivers totals $67 billion annually a workforce, that if paid, would be comparable to the GDP of Bulgaria.

The people who either cant afford retirement homes or dont have loved ones to take care of them usually end up in a long-term care facility. He divides his segment to focus on the two types of long-term care units nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

Oliver notes how nursing homes are plagued by a lack of staffing, training and funding. Situations can be so extreme that, in a clip, employees came out to discuss how they, the facilitators, are embarrassed by their work.

Im not even embarrassed by my work and just three minutes ago I joked about f*cking a plate. That wasnt even a joke, ridiculed Oliver.

Oliver explains the complex system in which nursing homes discriminate against patients with Medicare and those with Medicaid. Each program reimburses nursing homes differently, and over-billing happens frequently, leading to a litany of lawsuits.

When he shifts the focus to the federal oversight of these nursing homes, Oliver immediately reveals how ill-equipped the government is to regulate this industry. Though there exists a public list of facilities that regularly breaks regulations, it must be capped at 88 since there isnt any money to include more. On top of that, the other criteria on the lists like staff number and quality measures are self-reported, exposing a massive loophole on how this industry operates.

Garbage in and garbage out. That is pathetic. Something that is as important as our nursing homes rating system should not follow the same rule as every recipe on Velveetas website. There is just no way any of those are any good, judged Oliver.

The most apparent and shocking example of the lack of federal oversight on long-term care facilities, specifically assisted living, came when Oliver showed an assisted living facility in Florida that had one of its patients unwittingly fall into an alligator pond. Their fate seems rather obvious.

I honestly dont know where to begin there. But I guess Id start with, why would anyone put an assisted living facility next to a f*cking alligator pond. That seems like the sort of detail that has to be included at the end of one of Brookdales heartwarming ads, said an exasperated Oliver.

He continued the narrative of horrifying assisted living facility stories with patients committing suicide, freezing to death and self-immolating.

Olivers call to action this week was to pass reform at the national level starting with the HCBS Access Act of 2021, which would make home and community-based care an entitlement under Medicaid.

He says this issue is of utmost importance because our collective treatment of those people unearth our largest national ghosts.

It all starts with showing that we give a sh*t what happens to the elders and people with disabilities in this country. Right now, evidence points to the fact we absolutely dont and all the other problems are stemming from that. The longer we continue to ignore, the worse its going to get. This is an industry where people are literally getting eaten alive, ended Oliver.

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Last Week Tonight: John Oliver Takes Biden To Task Over Immigration Reform, Uncovers Wild West Of Nursing Homes - Deadline

With a significant influx of migrants at U.S. southern border and new priorities under the Biden-Harris administration, immigration policy is at the forefront of the national conversation. After four years of hardline policies from the Trump administration, President Biden and congressional Democrats have committed to passing inclusive immigration reform. The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, which was unveiled by congressional Democrats in February, would eventually provide most undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship but is unlikely to earn bipartisan support. With so much urgent debate surrounding a long-contested issue, many people are wondering what realistic, comprehensive immigration policy reform may look like in the United States.

On April 29, as part of the twelfth annual A. Alfred Taubman Forum on Public Policy, Governance Studies at Brookings will host a webinar to explore the future of immigration policy in the United States. Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), lead sponsor of the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 in the House of Representatives, will give keynote remarks. A panel of immigration policy experts will follow to discuss legislation needed for immigration reform, obstacles to reform, and ways to move forward as a nation.

Viewers can submit questions for speakers by emailingevents@brookings.eduor via Twitter at@BrookingsGovby using #Taubman Forum.

Original post:
The future of immigration policy in the United States - Brookings Institution