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TheHealthcare Workforce Resilience Act(HWRA)is a bipartisan bill sponsored by Sens.Chris Coons (D-DE), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Todd Young (R-IN) andformer Sen. David Perdue (R-GA).

In March 2021, Sen. Durbin formally introduced the bill into theSenate to strengthen the country's healthcare workforce byrecapturing unused visas and assigning them to foreign nationalphysicians, nurses and other healthcare professionals.

The intent of HWRA is to bring more qualified immigrant doctorsand nurses into the U.S. to address healthcare employment issuescaused by the COVID-19 pandemic. It may also help alleviate thecountry's shortage of healthcare workers.

Even though the senators unveiled HWRA at the start of theCOVID-19 pandemic to prompt immigration reform and supporthealthcare workers, it also addresses an issue that started beforethe pandemic.

Prior to 2020, the U.S. healthcare system already had a shortageof workers. Research from theNew American Economy (NAE)showsthat in 2018, before the pandemic struck, approximately 27healthcare practitioner jobs were available for each unemployedhealthcare practitioner.

Nursing is experiencing a labor shortage, which led to itscategorization as a"Schedule A"occupationby the Department of Labor (DOL). DOLclassifies occupations as "Schedule A" if there are notenough qualified workers in the U.S. for a specific job.

In the healthcare sector, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown thatthere is an urgent need for more qualified healthcare workers.

As a result of the healthcare worker shortage, hospitals haverepeatedly exceeded their capacity throughout the pandemic. In someinstances, healthcare workers have worked shifts up to 24 hours,theNiskanen Center reports.

To compensate for the shortage, nurses have been called out ofretirement to work, and school nurses have been called to hospitalsto assist. More so, the Association of American Medical Colleges(AAMC) reports thatpandemic and nationwide nursing shortage have ledto increased burnoutamong staff.

One major issue in the U.S. immigration system that HWRA wouldaddress is unused visas. In total, the HWRA wouldallow U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services torecaptureabout 40,000 visas for healthcareprofessionals, including 25,000 visas for nurses and 15,000 visasfor physicians. If signed into law, the legislation would also helpalleviate the shortage of healthcare workers in the country.

Unused visas are a widespread concern in the U.S. immigrationsystem. Unissued visas in the healthcare industry have beenparticularly problematic during the pandemic as the countrygrappled with a shortage of healthcare workers. Despite thewillingness of foreign healthcare workers to come over to the U.S.to improve the situation, help has beenslow to arrive, according to theNiskanen Center.

Thousands of nurses from other countries have been hoping to getinto the U.S. throughout the pandemic. However, because they arenot typically eligible for temporary work visas, they must waituntil immigrant visas are available. Many foreign nationals aresubject to limitations, such as country caps and backlogs.

Several times in the past, Congress has managed to recaptureunused visas. In 2000, Congress passed the American Competitivenessin the 21st Century Act. In 2005, it passed the EmergencySupplemental Appropriations bill. Collectively, thetwopieces of legislationrecapturedalmost 200,000 visas.

Even so, the Niskanen Centerreportsthat over 505,000employment visas went unused between 1992 and 2009. Over 175,000visas were unused and never recaptured between 2005 and 2009. Byrecapturing unused visas again, Congress could significantlyenhance the nation's healthcare workforce by allowing qualifiedworkers into the country.

HWRAproposes recapturing visasfroma pool of previously unused employment-based visas Congress hasalready authorized. The visas would be issued by their prioritydate, and they would also be eligible for premium processing.

Ultimately, the bill may help to alleviate the shortage ofhealthcare workers in the U.S. Although it is designed to providerelief for an overtaxed healthcare system, HWRA would also remedyan employment situation that would likely persist into the futurewithout legislative intervention.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a severe shortage ofhealthcare workers, and it has strained healthcare systems acrossthe country. Luckily, there is renewed bipartisan support for abill to repair the country's healthcare system.

The HWRA isawaiting further action in theSenate, and it hasgained support from moreorganizationssince its introduction, includingthe American Health Care Association/National Center For AssistedLiving.

Originally published 20 April, 2022

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The Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act: A Legislative Vaccine Against COVID-19? - Immigration - United States - Mondaq

Last year, after months of in-fighting among Democrats, opposition from Republicans, and technical obstacles, President Joe Bidens Build Back Better Act died in Congress. The $1.9 trillion spending bill contained a few immigration provisions watered down from Bidens original immigration reform proposal known as the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021.

As the name suggests, the U.S. Citizenship Act would have established pathways to citizenship for the countrys 11 million undocumented residents, including those with special status designations such as DREAMers those brought here unlawfully as children and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders. But lawmakers opted to try passing smaller bills, including severely watered down measures where citizenship provisions were left out altogether. Some trimmed-down bills are still floating around Congress a year later, highlighting the possibility of citizenship for millions of undocumented residents who live and work here remains out of reach.

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The U.S. Citizenship Act proposed sweeping immigration reforms, such as expanding legal work access for immigrants and dependents potentially affecting 13.6 million green card holders in the U.S. as well as providing a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented residents. According to the Center for American Progress, the U.S.s undocumented workforce alone contributes an estimated $79.7 billion in federal taxes, in addition to $41 billion in state and local taxes.

But the U.S. Citizenship Act was ultimately abandoned by lawmakers in favor of smaller separate bills, given the unlikelihood that such sweeping reforms would gain enough support from Republicans and conservative Democrats to pass the Senate. Some smaller measures have stalled in Congress while others have perished as part of the broader Build Back Better bill.

The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, as it was officially known, featured a bevy of immigration reform measures that can largely be divided into three components: providing work-related reforms for both immigrants with legal statuses and undocumented immigrants; modernizing border security measures; and addressing root causes of migration to the U.S. from the south. The legislation was introduced into Congress in February last year through bicameral bills sponsored by Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, and Democratic Congresswoman Linda Snchez of California.

But as Democrats sought to trim down these provisions into piecemeal policies to gain bipartisan support, the smaller bills proposed have largely focused on work-related reforms for immigrants and pathways to citizenship for those who are undocumented, avoiding border security components that may be more appealing to centrists and Republicans especially ahead of midterm elections.

Last year, after months of in-fighting among Democrats, opposition from Republicans, and technical obstacles, President Joe Bidens Build Back Better Act died in Congress. The $1.9 trillion spending bill contained a few immigration provisions watered down from Bidens original immigration reform proposal known as the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021.

Also Read: Green Card Holders Are Able to Vote in NYC Elections

As the name suggests, the U.S. Citizenship Act would have established pathways to citizenship for the countrys 11 million undocumented residents, including those with special status designations such as DREAMers those brought here unlawfully as children and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders. But lawmakers opted to try passing smaller bills, including severely watered down measures where citizenship provisions were left out altogether. Some trimmed-down bills are still floating around Congress a year later, highlighting the possibility of citizenship for millions of undocumented residents who live and work here remains out of reach.

The U.S. Citizenship Act proposed sweeping immigration reforms, such as expanding legal work access for immigrants and dependents potentially affecting 13.6 million green card holders in the U.S. as well as providing a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented residents. According to the Center for American Progress, the U.S.s undocumented workforce alone contributes an estimated $79.7 billion in federal taxes, in addition to $41 billion in state and local taxes.

But the U.S. Citizenship Act was ultimately abandoned by lawmakers in favor of smaller separate bills, given the unlikelihood that such sweeping reforms would gain enough support from Republicans and conservative Democrats to pass the Senate. Some smaller measures have stalled in Congress while others have perished as part of the broader Build Back Better bill.

Within this component of the U.S. Citizenship Act, the bills most notable measures aimed to provide a clear pathway to citizenship for different groups of undocumented immigrants. It established an eight-year path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who pass background checks and paid taxes, without having to fear being deported. The citizenship measure also extended to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients, TPS holders, and farmworkers, providing these groups with an expedited three-year path to citizenship.

This component of the bill also targeted reforms for immigrants with legal status. In addition to reducing the residence requirement for naturalization from five years to three years for all lawful permanent residents, the bill would cut down the severe visa backlog for green card holders and their families by recapturing unused visas from previous years to be allocated to family members of green card holders, with the goal of keeping families together. It also allows for approved family members to join their families in the U.S. temporarily while waiting for green card approval.

Beyond that, the bill would expand access to green cards for low-wage immigrant workers and give work authorization to dependents of H-1B visa holders, among other work-related reforms.

This component of the U.S. Citizenship Act was meant to draw away from ineffective and costly measures like constructing a physical border wall along the U.S.s southern border.

The bills border security measures would push the adoption of technology-based techniques instead, prioritizing the use of tech tools to detect illicit drug trafficking through ports of entry. The bill would also authorize funding to upgrade the infrastructure of immigration processing facilities at entry ports to improve officials ability to process asylum seekers.

Notably, this component of the bill includes the No Ban Act, which would prohibit discriminatory bans similar to former President Donald Trumps previous Muslim travel bans by raising the standards for such action to be used.

The third component of the U.S. Citizenship Act was aimed at reducing the flow of migration from the south by addressing the deep-rooted factors driving migration to the U.S., such as violence and poverty. Since taking office, Biden has sought to build partnerships with countries in Central Americas Northern Triangle comprised of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador to tackle these root issues, an endeavor that has been primarily overseen by Vice President Kamala Harris.

Among the measures within this component was the creation of safe legal channels for people to seek asylum protections while based in Central America, a means to deter individuals from trekking to the U.S.s southern border, a perilous journey that kills hundreds of people each year.

This component of the bill would also establish new programs and upgrade existing ones to prevent migrant children from being separated from their families for prolonged periods of time as had happened under the countrys previous zero tolerance policy. Namely, the bill would create a new Central American Family Reunification Parole Program, which would grant parole to certain citizens of Central American countries to enter the U.S., and revamp the existing Central American Minors Program, which allows at-risk children to come to the U.S. as refugees.

This component of the U.S. Citizenship Act was meant to draw away from ineffective and costly measures like constructing a physical border wall along the U.S.s southern border.

The bills border security measures would push the adoption of technology-based techniques instead, prioritizing the use of tech tools to detect illicit drug trafficking through ports of entry. The bill would also authorize funding to upgrade the infrastructure of immigration processing facilities at entry ports to improve officials ability to process asylum seekers.

Notably, this component of the bill includes the No Ban Act, which would prohibit discriminatory bans similar to former President Donald Trumps previous Muslim travel bans by raising the standards for such action to be used.

The third component of the U.S. Citizenship Act was aimed at reducing the flow of migration from the south by addressing the deep-rooted factors driving migration to the U.S., such as violence and poverty. Since taking office, Biden has sought to build partnerships with countries in Central Americas Northern Triangle comprised of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador to tackle these root issues, an endeavor that has been primarily overseen by Vice President Kamala Harris.

Among the measures within this component was the creation of safe legal channels for people to seek asylum protections while based in Central America, a means to deter individuals from trekking to the U.S.s southern border, a perilous journey that kills hundreds of people each year.

This component of the bill would also establish new programs and upgrade existing ones to prevent migrant children from being separated from their families for prolonged periods of time as had happened under the countrys previous zero tolerance policy. Namely, the bill would create a new Central American Family Reunification Parole Program, which would grant parole to certain citizens of Central American countries to enter the U.S., and revamp the existing Central American Minors Program, which allows at-risk children to come to the U.S. as refugees.

It was unlikely that the U.S. Citizenship Acts sweeping immigration legalization would gain enough bipartisan support to pass into law, given Democrats thin majority in the Senate. Lawmakers decided to move forward with piecemeal immigration legislation instead.

In March 2021, the House voted to pass two separate immigration bills: the American Dream and Promise Act and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. The American Dream and Promise Act offers a conditional 10-year pathway to citizenship for roughly 3.6 million DREAMers. It also grants a shorter pathway to citizenship for the roughly 400,000 TPS recipients living in the U.S., who would be eligible for green cards if they met specific requirements, and would eventually be allowed to apply for citizenship. Meanwhile, the Farm Workforce Modernization Act makes reforms to the H-2A temporary worker program for noncitizen agricultural workers, including the creation of an entirely new status for farmworkers with protections from deportation. The bill would impact 2.4 million farmworkers in the U.S., the majority of whom are immigrants.

In May 2021, House and Senate lawmakers introduced bicameral bills for another separate citizenship bill, the Citizenship for Essential Workers Act. The legislation provides a citizenship pathway specifically for undocumented essential workers, estimated to be more than 5 million undocumented workers in the U.S.

All three pieces of immigration legislation have stalled in Congress due to a lack of bipartisan support, despite various polls showing broad public approval toward providing a pathway to citizenship for certain undocumented immigrant groups.

By summer 2021, Senate Democrats began pushing watered-down immigration provisions as part of Bidens comprehensive Build Back Better Act. A version of the bill that passed through the House later in November carried five trimmed-down immigration provisionsnone of which offered a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Democrats opted to pass the Build Back Better Act through Congress budget reconciliation process so they could bypass the filibuster, which requires 60 votes for any legislation to pass the Senate. Through reconciliation, the bill would only need a simple majority vote to passgiven Democrats slim majority, Vice President Harris, who presides over the Senate, could be the deciding vote to pass the legislation. However, not every legislative item meets the criteria for budget reconciliation. Thats where the parliamentarian comes in to advise the Senate on which items are allowed in the reconciliation bill.

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough rejected multiple variations of immigration measures that Democrats tried to include in the budget plans. The final proposal rejected in December included immigration provisions that would expand the Department of Homeland Securitys authority to grant temporary work authorization for certain undocumented immigrants through immigration parole, allowing undocumented persons living in the U.S. five years of work authorization with an option to extend another five years thereafter. According to an analysis of the provision in the House bill by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the measure would have directly benefited 7 million undocumented immigrants.

The nature of MacDonoughs rulings was nonbinding, but Democrats resisted bypassing the parliamentarians advice for fear of setting a precedent that could be used by Republicans when they are in control of the legislature.As such, the Build Back Better Act including the limited immigration measures within it was not passed by Congress. But there is still hope for some immigration measures to get passed this year. The House and the Senate have approved their own versions of the United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021 meant to boost the U.S.s ability to compete economically against its global rival China. Something to watch in the upcoming months will be lawmakers reconciliation of the separately approved bills, which could include reforms related to so-called highly-skilled immigrants working in the STEM fields.

Read more:
How Congress Killed Immigration ReformDocumented - Documented NY

Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) andDick Durbin(D-Ill.) plan to bring together a group of senators interested in trying to revive immigration discussions after the April recess.They want to sit at a table and ask members who have immigration, bipartisan immigration bills, to come and propose those bills to us and see if we can build a 60-vote plus margin for a group of bills.

Are they serious about immigration reform, or are they just doing this so they will be able to say in the upcoming midterm elections that they sponsored a number of immigration reform bills?

It wont take much effort to repackage bills that have already been introduced.

In any case, they seem at least to be open to a variety of approaches to immigration reform, so I will take this opportunity to offer them a few suggestions.

Registry The Democrats tried to include a registry provision update in a reconciliation bill in September 2021, but the Senate parliamentarian made them remove it. That was unfortunate. The registry provision has not been updated since 1986.

The registry provision grants lawful permanent resident status to certain undocumented immigrants who have resided continuously in the United States since before Jan. 1, 1972. This means that registry currently is available only to undocumented immigrants who have lived here continuously for half a century, which greatly reduces the value of the provision.

The Democrats went too far in the other direction with the update they put in the reconciliation bill. It would have changed this date to Jan. 1, 2011, which would make legalization available to approximately 6.7 million undocumented immigrants.

At some point, an undocumented immigrant has been here so long that it would be unconscionable to make him leave. Its just a matter of reaching an agreement on when that point has been reached.

I encourage the senators to include the registry provision in their bipartisan discussion to see if there is a date that would be acceptable to both parties.

DACA Some Republicans are sympathetic towards the plight of DACA participants. Even former President Trumpwanted to help them. He proposed a DACA legalization program that would be a good place to start; that proposal was afour-point framework that only had one provision that was a deal-killer. He wanted to end the practice that opponents refer to as chain migration, the process by which legal U.S. residents may sponsor a family member for immigration to the United States.

I have proposed acompromisethat would provide DACA participants with lawful status through the Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) Program, which would also prevent the participant from conferring immigration benefits on his parents when he becomes a lawful permanent resident.

But circumstances have changed since then. A border security crisis has occurred under Bidens presidency. The Border Patrol apprehended nearly a million illegal crossers along the southern border during the first six months of fiscal 2022, and DHS is expecting up to 18,000 illegal crossings per day when the Title 42 order is lifted.

The Democrats may have to stop this flood of illegal crossers if they want Republican votes for a legalization program of any kind.

Unfair labor practices Most immigrants who enter the United States unlawfully come here to find employment. The shorthand description of this situation is that they are drawn here by the job magnet.

It is easy for unscrupulous employers to exploit them because they can be reported to ICE if they complain about the way they are treated.

The employer sanctions in INA section 1324a prohibit employers from hiring immigrants they know are not authorized to work. An employer who violates this provision is subject to fines of up to $10,000 for each undocumented employee. But this hasnt eliminated the job magnet.

The senators could augment employment sanctions with a bill establishing a Labor Department task force to mount a large-scale, nationwide campaign to stop the exploitation of employees in industries known to hire large numbers of undocumented immigrants. This would take immigration status out of the picture. The enforcement actions wouldnt be based on the immigration status of the exploited employees.

Expanded CAM program According to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, DHS has a plan for managing any potential increase in illegal border crossings when the Title 42 order is terminated.

The plan relies primarily on a newimmigration processthat will permit USCIS asylum officers to adjudicate the asylum claims of illegal crossers who establish a well-founded fear of persecution. This currently is done by immigration judges. If an asylum officers denies a claim, however, the applicant will be able to submit it again to an immigration judge.

USCIS is already struggling with a backlog of more than9.5 million benefit applications, and this includes about435,000 affirmative asylum applications. Asylum applications are considered affirmative when they are filed directly with USCIS and defensive if they are filed in removal proceedings before an immigration judge.

The other part of the plan is adedicated docketfor families who are apprehended after making illegal border crossings. This has been tried before by two previous administrations withmuch smaller immigration court backlogs, and it failed both times.

Human Rights Firstclaimsthat the dedicated dockets in previous administrations led tohigh ratesofin absentiaremovals, mistaken decisions that needed to be corrected on appeal, andincreased backlogs. AndGracie Willis, a staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center,thinksit is unfair to the individuals who have been waiting for their day in court for years to establish a rocket docket for families who have just crossed the border.

The senators could provide a better option with a bill to establish an expanded version of the Central American Minors (CAM) Refugee and Parole Program. The CAM program provides locations outside of the United States for screening the persecution claims of certain Central American children who have parents in the United States.

If the CAM program is expanded to include anyone with a persecution claim, asylum seekers would not have to make the dangerous journey to the United States to seek relief and there would be fewer illegal crossings at our border.

Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an Executive Branch Immigration Law Expert for three years. He subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years. Follow him at https://nolanrappaport.blogspot.com

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Senators say theyre interested in bipartisan immigration plan; here are some suggestions - The Hill

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This month, the C.D.C. announced plans to end Title 42, a public-health order, issued by the Trump Administration at the start of the pandemic, that gives the federal government broad authority to turn away migrants and asylum seekers at the southern border. Public-health experts and some Democrats have pressured President Biden to repeal the order, but others, including several of his own top advisers, argue that the repeal will substantially increase the number of migrants at the southern border, further straining a chaotic immigration system, and hand Republicans a campaign issue for the midterms: a migrant surge approved by the Administration. Jonathan Blitzer joins Dorothy Wickenden to talk about how immigration is becoming another political liability for the Biden Administration.

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How Biden Stumbled on Immigration Reform - The New Yorker

When Joe Biden ran againstPresident Donald Trump in 2020, he promised to fight back against anti-immigrant policies, including those that punished "sanctuary cities" and that gave more local authorities power to act as an extra arm of federal immigration enforcement.

More than one year into Biden's presidency, his administration has done little to support so-called sanctuaries cities, counties or states that limit how much they help federal agents to investigate, arrest or detain immigrants.

Biden told voters he would dial back Trump's expansion of cooperation agreements between local police officers and agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Instead, the Biden administration has left such collaborations in place and is even trying to convince local governments that refused to cooperate with ICE under Trump to start doing so now, a Capital & Main review of government documents and speeches shows.

While Trump used the presidential pulpit to drive sanctuary cities, and undocumented immigration more broadly, into a kind of culture war, the Biden White House has made it a lower priority, said Benjamin Gonzalez O'Brien, a San Diego State University political science professor who co-wrote a 2019 book about thehistory and politicsof sanctuary policies.

In Congress, deep partisan divisions and internal party disagreements endure, and have caused immigration reform efforts tostall out, as Republicans falsely accuse Biden of overseeing "open borders" and Democrats fail to pass any of the nearly half-dozen immigration bills introduced so far.

But immigration remains a part of daily life in communities across the country, and local and state governments continue to pass laws and elect officials on one or the other side of the issue. These local decisions on whether or not to collaborate with federal enforcement canaffect public safetyand trust in law enforcement, including by diverting resources or encouraging racial profiling.

"We're going to see the battle over sanctuary policies play out [in different localities] until we get some kind of national legislation," said O'Brien. "There are still millions of people living in a legal gray zone who are afraid of leaving the house and interacting with other members of their community because that threat of deportation hangs over their head."

The 'Main Engine' of Deportation

As a presidential candidate, Biden pledged to end Trump'shistoric expansionof local-federal cooperation on immigration enforcement because the partnerships known as 287(g) agreements "undermine trust and cooperation between local law enforcement and the communities they are charged to protect."

But under Biden, the federal government is still relying on local police partnerships as "the main engine of the deportation system," said Lena Graber, a senior staff attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco who studies the role of local police in immigration enforcement.

More than 140 local law enforcement agencies are currently signed up to help ICE, including by sharing information with federal agents when they arrest, detain or intend to release an undocumented immigrant.

A Capital & Main analysis of ICE data shows that under Trump, 111 sheriffs' departments began partnering with ICE for the first time through the 287(g) program. Nearly half of all local agencies that did so were in Florida and Texas. Some pro-immigrant advocates, policy analysts and civil rights groups say Trump's aggressive recruitment of local sheriffs facilitateddiscriminatory policing, such as racial profiling, that has separated families and created legal and financial challenges for people otherwise living quietly in the community.

Under Biden, ICE has only ended its collaboration with one sheriff's office, Bristol County in Massachusetts, after guards responded to immigrant detainees protesting conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic byshooting pepper ballsand siccing dogs on them.

The Biden administration has the authority to order ICE to cancel such partnerships at any time, Graber said. "It's the easiest policy thing for them to do."

Instead, contrary to campaign promises, the administration intends to expand local cooperation. Alejandro Mayorkas, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, recently sought toconvince mayorsthat they should resume collaborating with federal immigration authorities because "the agency of today, and what it is focused upon, and what it is doing, is not the agency of the past."

But the mayors of several cities including Berkeley, Philadelphia and New York have already said through spokespeople that theydon't intendto expand cooperation with ICE.

Prominent immigrant legal services groups called Mayorkas' pitch abetrayalof the president's commitments and warned in a public statement directed to him that such partnerships "co-opt local resources into questionable, racially discriminatory purposes, and strip communities of safety and public trust."

Biden's pick to run ICE, Ed Gonzalez, haspromisedto continue such local cooperation if he is confirmed by Congress, despite the fact that as sheriff of Harris County, Texas' most populous, hecanceledhis department's 287(g) agreement. During Trump's final year in office, Gonzalezcriticized the tactic, tweeting that "Diverting valuable law enforcement resources away from public safety threats would drive undocumented families further into the shadows & damage our community safety."

When it comes to supporting sanctuaries, the Biden administration has taken some steps.

Biden's administration hasrepealeda Trump-era ban thatbarredsanctuary cities like New York from receiving some federal grants. Under Biden, ICE haslimitedthe scope of who its agents should arrest and detain, has committed toending worksite raidsand is now arresting and detainingfewer peoplewithin the United States than under Trump.

But the biggest change so far has been in how the administration talks about undocumented people, said Cesar Cuauhtemoc Garcia Hernandez, an Ohio State University law professor who specializes in the intersection of criminal and immigration law.

In contrast with Trump, "we don't see the kind of racist, abrasive, offensive language coming from the president," Garcia Hernandez said. But the Biden administration is still struggling to find its footing when it comes to differentiating its actual immigration policies.

Garcia Hernandez said that city, county and state governments still have a "good amount of wiggle room when it comes to making life easier or harder for immigrants to live in their communities."

The direction in which local authorities go is not so much a matter of law, but of their politics, he said.

The Tug-of-War Over Undocumented Immigrants

In the years since Trump turned up the pressure on immigrant sanctuaries, some state legislatures across the country have passed laws pushing in opposite directions, with some enacting sanctuary-style policies and others banning them.

Within the last year, states likeIllinoisandNew Jerseypassed laws limiting the ways their police departments and jails can cooperate with immigration enforcement, including by banning them from entering any new contracts to detain immigrants for ICE.

Some states have strengthened long-standing protections for undocumented immigrants. Oregon, the nation's oldest sanctuary state, faced pushback from conservative state legislators over such policies during the Trump administration, and responded last summer. The state's Democratic lawmakers passed a "sanctuary promise" law intended to reinforce immigrant access to social services and block local police from sharing information with ICE or detaining immigrants.

Some local agencies have pushed back against such efforts, including the counties of Kankakee and McHenry, outside of Chicago. They sued Illinois, saying the state couldn't stop them from getting paid tens of millions of dollars per year to detain immigrants for ICE. But a federal judge recentlyruledthat the state does have the constitutional power to ban its counties from doing so.

At the same time, some states are going in the opposite direction by requiring their local agencies to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. Texas, Florida and South Carolina are among at least 10 states that passed laws during Trump's presidency blocking their cities and counties from engaging in "sanctuary" practices. A federal judge ruled that Florida's ban isunconstitutionalbecause it was adopted with discriminatory motives. A federal appeals court upheld most ofTexas' 2017 law, but legal challenges are pending.

No matter which way states go, immigration enforcement agencies still have the power to investigate, arrest and detain people anywhere in the country, including in sanctuaries.

To do so, ICE relies heavily on its expansive and long-standing partnership networks with local and state authorities. "Some are so deeply embedded that they remain in place irrespective of whether or not a community is a so-called sanctuary jurisdiction," said Jorge Loweree, policy director of the American Immigration Council.

For example, California has passedseverallawsover the years intended to stop state and local police from sharing information with ICE or transferring people into ICE custody. But despite these protections, some sheriff's offices haveworked with ICEanyway. At times, these partnerships have led to potentially illegal practices, such as when California's prison system transferred a U.S. citizen into ICE custody in 2020. The man wasdetainedfor a month by immigration authorities during the pandemic, until a judge finally ordered him released. In Seattle, also a longtime sanctuary, ICE similarly detainedanother U.S. citizenin 2019.

ICE also has access to a wide range of databases created by police agencies and information companies, such as the data mining corporation LexisNexis and the software creator Palantir, which was co-founded by the Trump-supporting billionaire Peter Thiel. Some immigrant rights advocates told Capital & Main these databases can help immigration officersobtain informationthat local agencies decline to provide.

Nonetheless, since Trump made anti-immigrant policies a centerpiece of his presidency and both campaign runs, some pro-immigrant activists have pushed back through local elections.

Max Rose, who directs the North Carolina-based Sheriffs for Trusting Communities, said his group works with local organizers across the country to elect more progressive sheriffs to replace those who have "fueled mass deportation, doubled down on over-policing in communities of color, and built jails that prioritize expansion rather than treatment and reentry."

Rose said the communities he works with "are pretty tired of law enforcement demonizing immigrant families, and doing so at the expense of doing their job." As a result, some sheriffs with a history of cooperating with ICE paid an electoral price in 2020, particularly in progressive pockets of the South. Democratic sheriffs ran and won on promises tocut such ties, including in Georgia's populousGwinnettandCobbcounties, where advocates claim community safety and relations have sinceimproved.

The immigrant-friendly sheriffs "showed there's a winning message on immigration," Rose said. "It's a line that the Democrats are trying to walk around the country. But I think there's a path that was cleared in 2020."

Some hardline sheriffs who had close relationships with the Trump administration are also expected to face challengers in elections later this year. Among them isSheriff Thomas Hodgsonin Bristol, the only county to have its ICE partnershipterminatedby the Biden administration.

Rose said that because Trump so polarized immigration enforcement and cooperation with local police, it's no longer "politically palatable" for Biden to continue those same policies.

While some sheriffs continue "demonizing and scapegoating immigrants in their community," Rose said, "we know it should no longer be acceptable for any sheriff to abuse that power, and to play the role of federal immigration enforcement."

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Despite Biden's campaign promises, immigration reform is on the back burner - Salon