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The Biden administration is again trying to shore up the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program against ongoing legal challenges that threaten to revoke protections for thousands of immigrants.

The effort is an important signal of the Biden administrations commitment to the program, but is far from a perfect fix. While the more than 450-page final rule, effective October 31, would formally codify DACA as a federal regulation, it will offer current DREAMers unauthorized immigrants who came to the US as children little immediate protection. It also doesnt allow any new DACA applications for now, narrowing its impact to the more than 600,000 people currently enrolled in the program.

Today, we are fulfilling our commitment to preserve and strengthen DACA by finalizing a rule that will reinforce protections, like work authorization, that allow Dreamers to live more freely and to invest in their communities more fully, President Joe Biden said in a statement on Wednesday.

Since former President Barack Obama created the program in 2012 via executive action, the program has shielded more than 800,000 DREAMers from deportation and allowed them to apply for work permits. Recent legal challenges to the program have put it in danger, however, leading the Biden administration to issue the new rule.

Because there are still more than two months until the rule goes into effect, the immediate status quo will not change, meaning those legal challenges still loom over the program, and DREAMers have no protection from any new challenges in the intervening period.

Even once the rule goes into effect, courts could still strike down the program as unlawful. If the rule is successfully implemented and Biden isnt reelected in 2024, his successor could potentially overturn it, but would likely have to go through the arduous federal rulemaking process to do so. Because of all this, the rule is no substitute for codifying the program in federal law, which is the only ironclad measure that would ensure its survival against attacks from anti-immigrant hawks.

While the Biden administrations new rule sends a clear message that DACA works, our communities need more, Marielena Hincapi, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, said in a statement. Strengthening DACA is a crucial step, but it is not a substitute for congressional action.

The rule replaces the policy guidance laid out in the 2012 memo that created DACA, maintaining the preexisting criteria for eligibility and the process for DACA applicants to request work permits. It also affirms that DACA is not a form of lawful status, but that DACA recipients are considered lawfully present for certain purposes and that they should not be prioritized for deportation.

But the rule is not a cure-all. Former President Donald Trump closed DACA to new applicants, but stopped short of dismantling the program altogether after the Supreme Court prevented him from doing so in a June 2020 ruling. The Biden administration briefly resumed processing new applicants, approving some 1,900 individuals for DACA status in the first five months of 2021, before a Texas federal judge ordered it to stop. Roughly 1.1 million individuals would have been eligible to apply for the program as of the end of 2021. For now, that court order remains in place, even despite the new rule.

Immigrant advocates have also been calling on the Biden administration to update the eligibility criteria for the program, which they argue is outdated. Under the current criteria, applicants must have been under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012, and have continuously resided in the US since at least June 15, 2007, among other requirements. Those eligibility dates havent been updated since the program was created.

The Department of Justice didnt immediately respond to comment as to why the rule did not update the eligibility requirements, but its likely out of fear of legal challenges.

The fact that the rule cleared the federal rulemaking process which involved soliciting and reviewing more than 16,000 comments from the public might make it more robust to legal challenges than the 2012 memo. But the program is still under immediate threat from a pending lawsuit in the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and additional challenges to the rule are anticipated.

If the Fifth Circuit strikes down DACA as expected, an average of 5,000 DACA recipients each week for the next two years will lose their ability to work and become vulnerable to deportation, according to Todd Schulte, the president of the immigrant advocacy group FWD.us.

Given this fact, it is absolutely critical for current DACA recipients to seek renewals as soon as they are eligible and consult with a lawyer about their options, he wrote in a statement for the group on Twitter.

Versions of the DREAM Act, which would have codified the DACA program in federal law and provided a path to citizenship to DREAMers, have failed to pass for years.

In March 2021, a round of bipartisan negotiations fizzled out. A bipartisan group of senators including Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Thom Tillis (R-NC) and John Cornyn (R-TX) restarted immigration reform talks in April, but have yet to achieve any meaningful progress.

One reason for that is Republicans have shown little interest in passing the DREAM Act or similar legislation unless its paired with beefed-up border security measures, something Democrats have rejected. Because of Democrats one-vote majority in the Senate, however, they need Republican buy-in to overcome any filibuster and to pass legislation.

Democrats tried to go it alone last year and pass immigration reforms in a social spending bill through budget reconciliation, which only requires a simple majority to pass, but the Senate parliamentarian rejected several of their proposals, arguing the new policies violated reconciliation rules.

Immigration reform remains broadly popular: A June 2021 poll by the American Civil Liberties Union found that 72 percent of voters support the DREAM Act. Polling like that has done little to sway GOP lawmakers, however, and with the midterm elections months away, Republicans have even less incentive to help Democrats realize their long-term goal of protecting DREAMers.

And, by delaying action, Republicans may be able to strengthen their bargaining position on the issue. If Republicans retake control of the House, as is widely expected, the odds of passing the DREAM Act without Democrats acquiescing to at least some GOP demands on the border are incredibly slim.

If theres any glimmer of hope for DREAMers, it might be in the Senates compromise on another highly divisive topic: gun control. Congress had been at an impasse on gun control since the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. But a series of major mass shootings finally galvanized enough bipartisan support to pass a gun safety package earlier this year that didnt go as far as Democrats wanted, but still introduced tailored reforms. With the right motivation, immigration advocates hope a similar sort of negotiation might be possible on immigration, as well.

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DACA is in jeopardy. The Biden administrations latest move to save it might not work. - Vox.com

Concept of economic recession during the coronavirus outbreak in United States, downtrend stock with ... [+] red arrow and The Statue of Liberty with mask background

U.S. economic growth has declined the past two quarters, a sign that a recession is around the corner. But even without a new recession, U.S. economic growth is stuck in a rut and President Bidens agenda is making it harder for us to get out.

In an important piece in City Journal, James Pierson notes how real GDP growth has slowed over the last 60 years, from 4.5% per year in the 1960s to a low of 1.9% per year in the 2000s before slightly rebounding to 2.2% in the 2010s. This is a disturbing trend that should alarm voters and policymakers at every level of government. Economic growth makes us healthier, happier, and better able to defend ourselves against authoritarian regimes like Russia and China.

A growing economy also helps quell civil unrest. When there is more for everybody people are less envious of other peoples success. When there is a fixed amount of stuff, someones success often comes at anothers expense. A country cannot be at peace for long with a stagnant or shrinking economy.

Supporters claim that President Bidens and Congresss recently passed lawsthe CHIPS Act, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)as well as Bidens student loan forgiveness executive order, will boost growth. But this optimism is misplaced.

CHIPS HIPS Act

The CHIPS Act subsidizes American semiconductor manufacturing and research and penalizes companies for expanding production in China. It also throws a lot of money at STEM education programs, especially in marginalized or underserved communities that the Biden administration considers more in need of investment.

While all the stipulations for the generous government handouts may further some worthwhile goal, that goal is certainly not economic growth. Most of the investment in new U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and research was going to happen regardless of the CHIPS Act because of increased demand and broad recognition that supply chains had become too dependent on China. The figure below shows planned U.S. foundry investment from Samsung, Intel INTC , and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. as of 2021, well before the CHIPS Act was passed last month.

Planned US foundry investment 2021 - 2024

In short, businesses were making investments in U.S. semiconductors because they made financial sense. Now, some of them will get free taxpayer money to boot, which is a waste of scarce resources.

Industrial policy has never been the key to strong economic growth because the government is terrible at playing venture capitalist. Instead of focusing on the return on investment, the CHIPS Act will funnel government money to various firms, organizations, and regions of the country based in part on subjective factors like community marginalization. This may be valuable, but it is not a strategy focused on boosting growth.

Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act

Like the CHIPS Act, the Infrastructure Act will be a disappointment when it comes economic growth. It gives money to states and local governments to build roads, bridges, EV charging stations, airports, ports, etc. but it does nothing to make building those things less expensive.

The IRA suffers from the same fatal flaw: It allocates billions of dollars to green energysolar panels, windfarms, nuclear power, EVsbut leaves the underlying cost issues untouched.

Not addressing costs is a problem since America has some of the highest construction costs in the world. America has the 6th highest average cost of rail per kilometer in the world and the real cost to build a mile of highway increased from $10 million in 1960 to over $30 million by the 1990s.

America is also relatively bad at building universities, hospitals, and airports, in no small part because of government regulation and oversight. As Brian Potter, a researcher who studies all things construction, wrote As administrative costs risethe more involved the government is in projectsthe worse the U.S. does compared to other countries.

If we do not address our high construction costs via regulatory reforms and reforms to prevailing wage laws, we will never get the infrastructure Biden and other government officials promise.

Related, both the IRA and Infrastructure Act are littered with counterproductive Buy American provisions that also raise costs. For example, only EVs assembled in North America are eligible for the EV tax credit in the IRA, and by 2023 batteries in EVs cannot use components sourced from China, even though China is the largest producer of many of the raw materials used to make batteries (In part because U.S. regulations make it extremely difficult to build the required mines. You cant make this stuff up).

Buy American provisions insulate U.S. companies from international competition, allowing them to reduce quality, ignore costs, and raise prices. This is what happened to the U.S. steel and automobile industries in the 1970s.

U.S. companies sheltered from competition become reliant on government favors and subsidies and their interests become entangled with the government that protects them. This creates companies that are too-big-to-fail and leads to more government bailouts like the ones we saw during the financial crisis in 2008.

Student Loan Forgiveness

Bidens latest policy, student loan forgiveness, will not boost growth, either, despite what he says. For starters, it does not directly incentivize much new education or human capital investment since it primarily pays for old investments.

Second, it indirectly creates an incentive for people to overinvest in education in the future since they will be less concerned about making sure they earn enough money to pay back any loans. After all, a future president may just forgive a big chunk of them again. So instead of working or getting some other training that will make them more productive, people will be more inclined to earn superfluous government-subsidized college credits.

Third, it will likely drive up the cost of a college education over time since colleges will feel less pressure to keep costs down knowing the government will step in if tuition gets too expensive. This has already happened in the past: A 2019 study found that when Congress increased the caps on subsidized student loans to help make college more affordable, colleges raised tuition by $0.60 per dollar increase. Colleges will rationally decide it is more profitable to secure government loans for their students than to do the hard work of managing costs.

Finally, the Committee For a Responsible Federal Budget notes that forgiving student loans will increase the deficit and contribute to higher inflation. Bigger government deficits crowd out private-sector investment, which hurts growth, and higher inflation creates economic uncertainty and instability, which also hurts growth.

Bidens policy agenda is anti-growth

Nothing the Biden administration has done so far is an obvious boost to economic growth. His signature policy wins raise taxes, create numerous economic distortions via subsidies and tax credits, will raise not reduce inflation, and do not address the overregulation that makes building things in America so expensive.

And if that was not enough, the administration is also anti-trade, pro-tariff, and is ignoring the countrys broken immigration system, causing us to miss out on the foreign workers and entrepreneurs we need to boost economic growth.

It is fair to say that the Biden administration is the most anti-growth administration of the past 40 years. This does not mean everything other administrations did was pro-growth or that the economy will not grow under Biden. But each of the other administrations was in favor of at least some pro-growth policies, such as Reagans pro-growth tax reforms and deregulation or the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement promoted by Obama.

As I wrote previously, states can implement their own tax and regulatory reforms to boost economic growth and they should do so. Unfortunately, the federal headwinds created by the Biden administration will weaken the impact of any state-level pro-growth policies.

To get economic growth back to 3% or more per year we need a presidential administration that prioritizes it. Someone who supports simple things like protecting private property, tax reforms that lower rates and broaden the base, bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, immigration reform that increases the labor force, and broad regulatory reform that makes it easier to build things or start a business. Until we return to basics, U.S. economic growth will suffer.

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Biden's Economic Agenda Is The Most Anti-Growth Of The Last 40 Years - Forbes

Yuma is two things: a city in the southwest corner of Arizona with a population of about 97,000 peopleand one of the nine United States Southern Border Patrol sectors, covering 126 miles of the countrys border with Mexico. In 2022, both have witnessed a burst in immigrationone that has produced a staggering 2,952 percentleap in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encounters over numbers from 2020. The number of immigrants that have passed over the Yuma border in 2022 is already 2.6 times greater than the total population of the city.

With state law enforcement and border patrol struggling to make ends meet, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey has captured the nations attention with an attempt to stem the flow by using tens of millions of dollars, razor wire, and metal shipping containers to plug as many as 50 holes in former President Donald Trumps unfinished border wall. In the past two weeks, Arizona has managed to close off five gaps, three of those very close to Yuma.

Douglas Nicholls, the mayor of Yuma, says the shipping containers do two things.

The five gaps that the governor has closed up in the last two weeks were the five busiest gaps we had, Nicholls told me. Having the ability to discourage crossers, as well as, when they do cross, coalesce them into a single location is more of a positive operational situation for Border Patrol and local law enforcement.

Those shipping containerswhile unlikely to fix Arizonas immigration problem or stem the tide of the 259,850 CBP encounters already made through July of this yearhave brought renewed attention to the U.S. southern border.

Almost half of the wall built under the Trump administration, about 226 miles, was built along the Arizona border, but scores of missing links allow thousands of immigrants to pour into the United States on a daily basis. Some of the gaps are 1,000 feet or longer, while others are only about as wide as a pair of cars parked end-to-end. To address the problem, the Arizona legislature appropriated $335 million to close the gaps in late June, and on Aug. 12 Ducey cleared approximately $6 million to begin construction on the temporary shipping container solution, which will later be replaced with fencing.

I spoke to people at more than 25 businesses in Yuma to see how the community perceives the issue. And while all of them were aware of the drastic increase in immigration from what theyve seen in the news, most said the problem isnt visible on the streets. Only one of them would share his full name.

Mark Mendoza, an employee at the Newberry Furniture store in the eastern part of Yuma, says that the influx is most visible near hotels or agricultural businesses where working immigrants often gather for temporary housing and work. But Mendoza told WORLD that the large number of immigrants who have crossed the border illegally arent milling about town.

They dont bother us very much. Theres a lot of people coming across, its crazy but really I dont see that many, Mendoza said. Ive seen more bums on the streets of Spokane, Washington, than I do [immigrants] walking around. Its thereyou just dont see it.

Instead, Mendoza says hes reminded about the immigration influx from the people around him who play a role in border security.

Border Patrol are busy, I can tell you that, Mendoza said with a dry laugh. Theyre always working. I have a lot of friends of mine that are Border Patrol. My cousins a lawyer for the rights of [immigrants]. Mendoza said what angers him most is the fentanyl.Narcotics, as Mendoza points out, is another point where the local community feels the issue acutely.

Waves of illegal immigration are often accompanied by spikes in closely correlated crimes likedrugs and human trafficking. From entry points like Yuma, thousands of pounds of heroin, fentanyl, and other substances make their way across the United States. As of Aug. 15, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported seizures this year of 53,946 pounds of cocaine and 10,558 pounds of fentanyl, along with a long list of other narcotics.

Noel Thomas, CEO of Zero Trafficking Consulting Services, explained that traffickers often rely on drug trade to ensnare victims who become addicted and trapped by substance abuse. The two go hand in hand in an extremely sophisticated web that stretches across the southern border.

We had one particular case where a woman was being trafficked. We worked with law enforcement to help coordinate a rescue she gets out of trafficking and her dad actually gets her to come back to the house for two hours. And then she ends up running away because shes hooked on fentanyl, Thomas said. Arizona in particular has a deep fentanyl problem.

Thomas isnt optimistic that the border wall of storage containers will do much to keep out cartels, their products, or their victims. He pointed out that drug smugglers often develop things like tunnel networks to get around border walls and other obstacles. Even when trucks full of immigrants are apprehended, smugglers have developed methods to evade capture like instructing everyone in the vehicle to disperse in all directionsa tactic that often makes capture extremely difficult and exhausting for law enforcement.

You can sense the frustration [from the border patrol] . Theyre overworked and under-appreciated. They become very frustrated and disenchanted, Thomas said.

Federal border patrol has a close working relationship with the Yuma Police Department, cooperating under the federal Stonegarden programa government grant program that funds teamwork between local and federal law enforcement efforts. Nicholls said that key partnership is one of the ways in which waves of illegal immigrants are kept out of the city of Yuma itself.

Nicholls believes another one of the reasons high volumes of immigrants arent felt as much within Yumas city limits is because a lot of the people who cross over illegally arent looking to stick around. When asked about Duceys decision to send buses full of immigrants to cities on the East Coast like Washington, D.C., and New York, Nicholls said its just speeding up a trend that is already in place.

Whats important about that very visible act is that those people were headed in that direction anyway. And what that says to the country is, yeah, Yuma is seeing these high numbers of crossers, but theyre coming to your city. This is not relegated to a border issue. All they got was a free ride, Nicholls said.

For now, he believes the wall of shipping containers can help law enforcement do their job more efficiently. He knows it wont solve the problem outright, but hopes that the country sees the issue just a little more clearly as a result.

The plugging of the walls is a management issue I hope it builds some support for border patrol so they can do their job more effectively, Nicholls said. I hope it makes the case to the country, to Congress, to the president we need immigration reform that meets the goals of the nation.

Continued here:
Immigration through the eyes of Yuma | WORLD - WORLD News Group

Those who practice municipal law in the three states that make up the Seventh Circuit now have a new standard to consider when arguing that a law violates the Constitutions Ex Post Facto Clause.

Laws that are both retroactive and penal run afoul of the Ex Post Facto Clause. Until recently, courts in the Seventh Circuit decided the first prong of that analysisthat is, whether a law was retroactiveby applying a rule adopted in United States v. Leach, 639 F.3d 769 (7th Cir. 2011), and Vasquez v. Foxx, 895 F.3d 515 (7th Cir. 2018). The upshot of the Leach-Vasquez rule was that a law was not retroactive if it applied only to conduct occurring after its enactment. Vasquez, 895 F.3d at 520.

Courts within the Seventh Circuit applied that rule consistently, even as decisions in other circuits and states around the country moved away from that narrow understanding of retroactivity. The Supreme Court had adopted a broader rulefinding a law to be retroactive whenever it changes the legal consequences of acts completed before its effective dateas far back as 1981 in Weaver v. Graham, 450 U.S. 24, 28 (1981), and it reaffirmed that view more recently in Vartelas v. Holder, 566 U.S. 257 (2012), a case that considered whether Congresss 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act was retroactive given its application to lawful permanent residents who committed crimes of moral turpitude before the Acts effective date.

But, as of earlier this month, Leach-Vasquez is no longer good law in the Seventh Circuit. The court took the opportunity to overrule it in Koch v. Village of Hartland, No. 22-1007 (Aug. 8, 2022), admitting in somewhat stark terms that its caselaw had departed from this history and judicial consensus that began in Weaver.

At issue in Koch was an ordinance passed by the Village of Hartland in Wisconsin that placed a moratorium on new sex offenders moving into the village. While the district court had concluded that the ordinance was not retroactive under Leach-Vasquez because it applied only to conduct occurring after its enactment (namely, the sex offenders act of moving into the village), the Seventh Circuit reversed and found that the ordinance violated the Ex Post Facto Clause because its effect, in the language of Weaver, was to change the legal consequences of acts completed before its effective date.

Judge St. Eve wrote the decision, joined by Judge Jackson-Akiwumi. Judge Kirsch concurred in the judgment only and wrote separately because he believed that the majoritys decision relied on an outdated analysis from Weaver. Vartelas, in Judge Kirschs view, had narrowed Weavers holding, making some laws with retroactive application constitutional so long as they addressed postenactment dangers. Without that important limitation on Weaver, Judge Kirsch believed that laws like 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1) or (g)(4) would violate the Ex Post Facto Clause.

As in all cases where a panel of the Seventh Circuit proposes to overrule circuit precedent, the panel, pursuant to Circuit Rule 40(e), circulated its proposed opinion among the active members of the court to determine whether the case should be heard en banc. Here, a majority did not vote in favor.

The court reversed the district courts judgment and remanded for further determination of whether the villages ordinance met the punitive prong of the analysis.

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Seventh Circuit Announces a New Standard for Analyzing Violations of the Ex Post Facto Clause - JD Supra

OSHKOSH - From the outset of the general election campaign, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mandela Barnes has been hit with a barrage of negative ads by Republicans.

The messages portray him as holding views outside of the political mainstream, tying him tothe progressive lawmakers dubbed 'the Squad' that includes U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

Barnes' response? "Put it like this," he told the Journal Sentinel Thursday. "Im not running for the Senate to join the Squad or any group of lawmakers.

"We are doing the work that needs to be done, talking about the issues that Ron Johnson consistently ignores. And we knew out of the gate that they would make up lies and say what they wanted to say."

Barnes and his campaign are trying to focus on kitchen-table issues while keeping the pressure on Johnson, the Oshkosh Republican running for a third Senate term.

And they're also trying to steer clear of any controversy.

Take President Joe Biden's plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt.

Other Democratic Senate candidates running in swing states were cool to the proposal, including Tim Ryan in Ohio, who criticized the idea.

Barnes' campaign issued a carefully crafted statement that said, "Barnes supports common sense proposals to lower costs, including some student loan relief and a middle class tax cut."

Barnes spokeswoman Maddy McDaniel added:"The Lt. Governor knows the (Biden) plan will help Wisconsinites but thinks it should have also included support for technical education. We need a middle class tax cut so people can keep more of what they earn regardless of if they go to college."

More: Mandela Barnes proclaims Ron Johnson says 'wacky stuff' while the U.S. senator accuses his challenger of having a short rsum

Barneshas also sought to defuse some criticism he has faced and which Republicans have raised in TV ads. Barneshas said he is not part of the Abolish ICE movement, even though he once posed with a T-shirt with that slogan.

Barnes said he is "for comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship for dreamers and their families."

Barnes also favors eliminating cash bail nationwide. The federal justice system does not use cash bail as a condition of a defendant's pre-trial release.

"It's about keeping people safe," Barnes said. "Under my plan, dangerous criminals don't get to buy their way out of jail."

There is one issue that Barnes and Democrats are leaning in to: Social Security.

And it was Johnson who gave them the opening.

The senator has repeatedly weighed into the subject in recent weeks, first saying that Social Security and Medicare should be part of annual budget talks, instead of mandatory spending.

Then, during a campaign appearance in Rice Lake, Johnson said that Social Security "was set up improperly"and would have been better invested in the stock market.

Johnson has said he wants to preserve America's signaturesocial insurance program, as well as Medicare.

During an appearance at the Winnebago County Democratic office in downtown Oshkosh, Barnes hit Johnson hard on the subject.

"It's clear Ron Johnson doesn't share our values," Barnes said. "He doesn't think that our seniors deserve the benefits that they paid into their entire lives their entire careers."

Barnes said he would "go to the mat to defend Social Security and Medicare" and accused Johnson of putting the two programs "on the chopping block."

Johnson campaign spokesman Alec Zimmerman was critical of Barnes' stance.

Leave it to a career politician like Mandela Barnes to bury his head in the sand and ignore a politically difficult problem," Zimmerman said. "The reality is Social Securitywill be depleted by 2035but Barnes has no plan to protect Seniors, just empty scare tactics and hollow election-year rhetoric.

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Senate candidate Mandela Barnes says he wouldn't be part of the Squad - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel