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The United States could eventually grant citizenship to roughly 2.5 million undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children.

The American Dream and Promise Act of 2021, which passed in the Democrat-dominated House of Representatives on March 18, would give a group known as the Dreamers permanent resident status for 10 years. They could then apply to be naturalized as U.S. citizens.

Only nine House Republicans voted for the bill, so in its current form it is unlikely to pass the Senate, which is split evenly between Democrats and Republicans. For over a decade, all congressional efforts to protect Dreamers have died in the Senate.

In 2012, President Barack Obama bypassed Congress with an executive order to help this group of immigrants. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, granted the temporary right to live, study and work to about 800,000 undocumented immigrants age 30 or younger who had come to the U.S. before age 16.

President Donald Trump rescinded DACA in fall 2017, asking Congress to resolve the Dreamers legal limbo by March 2018. Congress hasnt passed any legislation to resolve Dreamers status; the American Dream and Promise Act is an effort to attempt that.

Heres some key background and expert analysis on the Dreamers and DACA as the debate advances to the Senate.

Researchers who evaluated DACA found the program benefited both Dreamers and the United States.

Wayne Cornelius, a professor emeritus of U.S.-Mexican relations at the University of California, San Diego, led a research team that interviewed dozens of DACA recipients in 2014. He found that work permits enabled them to get higher-paying jobs.

This made college more affordable and increased their tax contributions. DACA [also encouraged] them to invest more in their education because they knew legal employment would be available when they completed their degree, Cornelius wrote in 2017.

A survey conducted earlier that year of some 3,000 DACA recipients found that 97% were currently employed or enrolled in school, and many had started their own businesses.

But DACA had significant limitations, according to Cornelius. Because their work authorization had to be renewed every two years, for example, some employers were reluctant to hire Dreamers.

Still, research found, DACA enabled recipients to further their education and obtain jobs and health insurance, wrote migration specialists Elizabeth Aranda and Elizabeth Vaquera in September 2017.

The program gave the Dreamers peace of mind something that, until then, was unfamiliar to them.

Nearly 80% of DACA recipients came from Mexico. So when the Trump administration in September 2017 set DACA protections to expire within six months, the decision affected Mexico, too.

Ending DACA exposes 618,342 undocumented young Mexicans to deportation, wrote political scientist Luis Gmez Romero.

Gmez Romero said the DACA decision could be read as a power play in Trumps ongoing battle with the government of Mexico over its refusal to pay for a border wall.

By early 2018, with DACA soon to expire, Congress was in a scramble for a solution, according to Kevin Johnson, a dean and professor of Chicana/o studies at the University of California, Davis. That month, a congressional showdown over the Dreamers closed the federal government for 69 hours.

While some conservatives have balked at the idea of giving amnesty to any lawbreakers, he wrote, some progressives found DACA too narrow.

According to the Migration Policy Initiative, DACA excluded about 1 million unauthorized immigrants who met most criteria for DACA but had not completed their education, had committed a crime or feared applying to DACA because of worry their undocumented parents could be deported.

Trump reentered the fray in January 2018 with a proposed path to legalization for 1.8 million Dreamers. The trade-off for siding with Democrats: Congress had to fund his U.S.-Mexico border wall.

That proposal, too, failed.

The Dreamers plight has forced the Supreme Court to get involved on several occasions.

In 2017 the court issued an injunction on Trumps termination of the program, allowing DACA recipients to renew their protected status for another two-year period while other lawsuits proceeded. In June 2020, the court ruled the Trump administration could not actually dismantle DACA because it had not provided adequate justification for doing so.

That gave the Dreamers another respite, but DACA remained in danger because the 2020 ruling was not about whether the president of the United States has the authority to rescind DACA, wrote political scientist Morgan Marietta of the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. All of the parties involved agreed that he does.

The case merely confirmed that a president cannot lie about the rationale underlying his executive orders.

The justices narrow decision left open the possibility that the administration could try to rescind DACA at a later date, wrote Marietta.

Joe Bidens election forestalled that. His administration is pushing Congress to undertake comprehensive immigration reform that would create pathways to citizenship not only for the Dreamers but also for other undocumented immigrants, including farmworkers.

Any immigration overhaul must tackle a host of new challenges created over the past four years, according to Miranda Cady Hallett, a Central America immigration expert at the University of Dayton.

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Trump made over 400 changes to immigration policy, by Halletts tally, including barring immigrants from several Muslim-majority countries and separating families at the border.

While many presidents have deported large numbers of undocumented immigrants, Trumps immigration enforcement was more random and punitive, writes Hallett. It vastly increas[ed] criminal prosecutions for immigration-related offenses and remov[ed] people who have been in the U.S. longer.

That includes the Dreamers.

After a decade of legal battles and political threats, the Dreamers arent so young anymore. Many in the original group of 800,000 are pushing 40.

Read more here:
Citizenship for the 'Dreamers'? 6 essential reads on DACA and immigration reform - The Conversation US

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) spoke about immigration reform on Thursday and called on the Biden Administration to send a stronger message to South America.

During a live Congressional update on 17 News at 5 p.m., the Hanford Congressman said many migrants are trying to get into the United States by lying about their age and taking advantage of the asylum system.

During the interview, Valadao said he agreed with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) that the situation at the border has been made worse by the current administration.

I think they have to send a stronger message to South America, Valadao said of the Biden White House. The president is starting to do that now, but when he first came into office and started to back away from some of the asylum rules that [former President] Trump tried to put in place, it started to send some of these people over, he continued.

Valadao voted in favor of two immigration that recently passed in the house. One bill would create a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers young adult undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. The other bill would allow undocumented agriculture workers to apply for legal status if they pay a fine and agree to work another four to eight years in the agriculture sector.

Congressman Kevin McCarthy voted against the pieces of legislation, arguing they will worsen the situation at the US-Mexico border.

See the article here:
During congressional update, Rep. Valadao speaks on immigration reform, calls on Biden to send stronger message to South America - KGET 17

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Immigrants are substantial contributors to Southwestern Pennsylvanias success and are crucial to our ability to respond and rebuild from the pandemic. Today, over 70,000 undocumented immigrants, including 1,700 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, work in essential roles across the state. Even as undocumented immigrants contribute heavily to our economy and workforce, their status is riddled with uncertainty.

The region has continued to lose population each year from out-migration, more deaths than births, declining fertility replacement rates and a decline in immigration. Benchmark regions have gained population and, in many cases, surpassed Pittsburgh. Attracting and retaining foreign-born talent and college graduates is crucial for building our economy and addressing our workforce shortages and our ability to compete for the investment we need to reach our goal of a globally competitive, inclusive region. Without DACA, our state could lose $323 million annually in GDP and $204 million in annual state and local taxes.

Thankfully, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bipartisan Dream and Promise Act last week, creating a pathway to citizenship for the DACA recipients and DACA-eligible individuals who strengthen our communities and economy. This bill wont just help the immigrant community but all Pennsylvanians. The DACA program allows those who came to the U.S. at a young age the ability to legally work and study.

I hope our leaders in the U.S. Senate, including Sen. Pat Toomey, follow suit to establish a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who have only ever known Pennsylvania as home.

Matt Smith

Downtown

Categories:Letters to the Editor | Opinion

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Letter to the editor: Immigration reform will rebuild our economy - TribLIVE

Remember, remember always that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.Franklin Delano Roosevelt, addressing the Daughters of the American Revolution, April 1938

Americans ambivalence about immigration has increased as millions of undocumented immigrants began arriving in the U.S. following the passage of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan.

Today the country faces a growing problem on the Southern border that was exacerbated when the Trump administration instituted the zero-tolerance policy and separated some 4,000 children from their migrant parents. The inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security reported that the governments records were so poorly kept that no one knew where hundreds of these children were located. One of President Bidens goals is to find and return them to their parents.

The Department of Homeland Security has acted, but Congress must also. It has in the past, and it must do so again now. Quickly. The iconic example is the bill signed in November 1986 by President Ronald Reagan, the Immigration Reform and Control Act. At the time of its enactment, the president noted that it was the most comprehensive reform of our immigration laws in over 35 years.

The law, an effort by Republicans and Democrats, achieved three goals: a path to citizenship for the undocumented in the country as of 1982, economic sanctions on employers who failed to determine the immigration status of their workers, and authority to enforce immigration laws. The measure passed the House, 238-173, and the Senate, 63-24.

The president supported a path to citizenship. He noted that the legalization provisions in this act will go far to improve the lives of a class of individuals who now must hide in the shadows, without access to many of the benefits of a free and open society. Very soon many of these men and women will be able to step into the sunlight, and ultimately, if they choose, they may become Americans.

The problem is that today is not 1986. Rifts between Republicans and Democrats over the past 20 years have forestalled any compromise on a wide-ranging package of bills.

In his 2007 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush, like Ronald Reagan, advocated comprehensive immigration reform. He supported increased border security and holding employers accountable for hiring undocumented migrants. But he went farther, in his words, to say, People who have worked hard, supported their families, avoided crime, led responsible lives, and become a part of American life should be called in out of the shadows and under the rule of American law. In other words, they must be offered a path to citizenship.

The bill died in the Senate, killed by the filibuster despite the bipartisanship of its main supporters: Senators Ted Kennedy (D., Mass.), John McCain (R., Ariz.), John Kyl (R., Ariz.), and Harry Reid (D., Nev.).

President Obama too attempted, and failed, at immigration reform. In 2012, he signed an executive order authorizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to defer action against the children of undocumented migrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. He supported the bill crafted by the so-called Senate bipartisan Gang of Eight that contained a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants over 13 years and additional billions of dollars for border security. It handily passed the Senate, but the House never took it up.

The problem at the Southern border has grown over the past several months as increasing numbers of people flee poverty, violence, and disease in their native lands. The Trump administration ended the Reagan/Bush/Obama attempts to reform immigration with no plan except to close the border and build a fence.

The opportunity is there, as the Biden administration has proposed the comprehensive U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, even as the president turns back migrants seeking asylum but allows unaccompanied minors to remain. But the lack of bipartisanship has forced the administration to break up the bill for now, leaving only a few items: protecting the Dreamers, those brought to the U.S. by their parents when they were children whom President Obama protected in 2012, and granting temporary safety to migrant workers in need of humanitarian protection. The House passed these modest proposals on March 18, and they now go to the Senate. Passage would bring great relief to many people on this Island.

No doubt the border needs greater security, but those who have long lived, worked, and contributed to the American economy need protections and a way to contribute to the success of American democracy. The bill Ronald Reagan signed back in 1986 remains the standard of bipartisanship that proves that democracy is workable. As he put it, the law has truly been a bipartisan effort, with this administration and the allies of immigration reform in the Congress, of both parties, working together to accomplish these critically important reforms.

Jack Fruchtman, who lives in Aquinnah, taught constitutional law and politics for more than 40 years.

See the article here:
Immigration reform: Long overdue - Martha's Vineyard Times

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Joe Biden wants Congress to act on immigration reform to speed up green cards for Indians

US President Joe Biden wants Congress to act on an immigration reform that it would allow Indian doctors and other professionals to expeditiously get their green cards, according to his spokesperson Jen Psaki.

"He believes that there should be faster processing, that our immigration system is broken at many levels," she said at a briefing on Wednesday. "He is eager to for Congress to move forward with action there."

She was replying to a question about a demonstration by Indian doctors in the US who had been in the frontlines of the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic asking for the elimination of country quotas for green cards that would enable them to get permanent residence status faster.

Asked about the delays in processing work authorisation for spouses of those holding H1-B and L1 visas, Psaki said: "The reason we want to push for action on immigration (legislation) on the (Capitol) Hill is to move forward with expediting the processing and doing that on several levels, including a number of the visas." "That's part of the reason why we think that's such an important piece to move forward on."

Indian doctors held a demonstration outside Congress last week demanding the removal of the country quotas to expedite their green cards,

Last month, Democrats introduced a comprehensive immigration reform bill in Congress that would remove the country quotas for green cards. While spouses of citizens are not restricted by the quotas, all other countries except for Canada and Mexico are each allowed only 26,000 green cards each year and this has created a huge backlog for applicants from countries like India, while some nations do not use their full quota.

According to the State Department, Indians with advanced degrees whose immigration applications were approved in 2009 and skilled workers and professionals whose applications were okayed in 2010 are still waiting for their green cards. Those wait times are only for those whose applications are already approved, and it could run to centuries for those in the immigration queue.

The immigration reform bill faces an uphill battle because Republicans demand that it include stringent restrictions on illegal immigration and the backing of some members of that party would be required in the Senate.

Earlier, legislative action to remove country caps failed in the last Congress because the Senate and House of Representatives versions of the bill had differences that were not reconciled in time and it lapsed. The Senate in December 2020 and the House in 2019 had passed the separate versions of the bill.

H-1B visas are for professionals and L-1 visas are for those transferred by their companies to the US. Their spouses had been allowed to work in the US under a regulations introduced by former President Barack Obama, but his successor Donald Trump had tried to ban work authorisation for them.

In its first week in office, the Biden administration killed Trump's effort and continued to make the spouses, most of them Indian women, eligible to get work permits.

The San Jose Mercury reported last month that the Citizenship and Immigration Service had attributed the work authorisation "delays to 'Covid-19 restrictions, an increase in filings, current postal service volume and other external factors'". The newspaper added that the agency said that it had redistributed workloads and staff were working extra hours to reduce the delays.

READ MORE:Joe Biden believes it is important to modernise immigration system: White House

READ MORE:Biden admin proposes 18-month delay in calculating prevailing wages of H-1B, other visas

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Joe Biden wants Congress to act on immigration reform to speed up green cards for Indians - India TV News