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They keep coming. The numbers are climbing with no end in sight, claims an ominous voice over images of migrants crowded at the southwestern U.S. border. The implication of the 30-second spot sponsored by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which lobbies for lower immigration, is that the mass migration of people across borders is inevitable. On that point, even many immigration advocates agree. Only their interpretation is different: If large-scale population movement is inevitable, they argue, the receiving countriesand especially wealthy liberal democracies such as the United Statesneed fairer, more humane systems for processing people as they arrive.

The widespread assumption that immigration is inevitable shapes public discourse in other ways. To light a fire under Western governments only sluggishly moving to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, climate activists have cited a looming migration of people from countries prone to floods, fires, extreme storms, and desertification. Supporters of an internationalist foreign policy paint the many Ukrainians streaming across Europes borders so close on the heels of the 2015 influx of Syrian refugees as evidence of a foreordained future, in which those displaced by a surge in conflict will force open Europes doors.

But as I explain in my new book, 8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death, and Migration Shape Our World, this rhetoric does not match reality. It has, however, distorted the politics of the U.S. and other wealthy nations by galvanizing anti-immigrant forces while lulling progressives into complacency. In practice, national governments can and do exercise considerable control over how many people cross their borders. People fleeing conflict, displaced by environmental changes, or just hoping for a better life may try to come to liberal democracies. But those states dont have to take themand probably wont, unless immigration advocates convince the general public that an influx of newcomers is desirable rather than inevitable.

From the May 2021 issue: America never wanted the tired, poor, huddled masses

Even after Donald Trump, who pursued a zero tolerance immigration policy, left office, the U.S. has continued his restrictive approach using a policy known as Title 42, which, since March 2020, has allowed the U.S. to remove people who were recently in a country where a communicable disease was present. Critics see this as a border-enforcement mechanism masquerading as a COVID-19 measure; under first a Republican administration and then a Democratic one, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has used it to expel more than 1.7 million would-be immigrants and asylum seekers along the southwestern U.S. border. (Yesterday, the Biden administration floated the idea of lifting Title 42 in late May.)

Contrast recent American gatekeeping at the Mexican border with Colombias more welcoming response to the mass displacement of people from Venezuela, its economically and politically troubled neighbor. Colombian President Ivn Duque recently offered 10-year residency permits to nearly 1 million Venezuelans living in Colombia.

In Europe as in the Americas, individual nations differ significantly in their willingness to admit migrants. More than 1.1 million people applied for asylum in European Union countries in 2016. Although 61 percent of cases received a positive decision overalllargely driven by Germany, which issued approvals in 69 percent of its 631,000 casesFrance approved only 33 percent, the United Kingdom (then an EU member) 32 percent of cases, and Greece just 24 percent. But the welcome mat can just as easily be rolled up as rolled out. As citizens in many European democracies soured on immigration in the second half of the 2010s, even Germany denied more than 50 percent of first-time applicants in 2020.

The initial European response to Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion has been generous. But just a month into the brutal conflict, officials in Moldova, Ukraines smallest neighbor, are already saying that refugees are putting their country under strain. Past experience elsewhere in the world suggests that host nations resolve to support a huge exodus may not last as long as the crisis will.

Predictions of future human mobilityvoluntary and forcedfrequently focus on the dozens of push factors, such as crime and poor job prospects, that could drive people from their home country. The pressures that create emigration will continue in the future. Changing climates will make earning a living difficult for many people, and natural disasters will render some currently populated areas dangerous or even uninhabitable. The global retreat of democracy could yield more civil conflict and an increase in forced-displacement trends. But even if emigration from a troubled country is inevitable, immigration to a wealthy, peaceful one is far from it. Liberal democracies will not open their borders enough to accept all those seeking refuge.

Similarly, the pull factors that make a country attractive to migrants do not guarantee their legal entry. As Americas population ages, unless it can boost its fertility rate (which isnt looking likely), the country will have to either accept more immigrants to supplement native-born workers or else face the consequences of a shrinking labor force. Experts have made the same argument in Japan, where low fertility would seem to have made immigration an economic necessity. But Japanese voters and public officials continue to resist proposals to invite migrants from elsewhere in Asia. Although Japan has the worlds oldest population, immigrants make up only about 2 percent of its residents, and the country imposes significant institutional barriers to discourage immigrants from settling permanently.

Sovereign nations, for reasons of their own, can and do enact restrictive immigration policies even when doing so is not in their best economic interest. Domestic political concernsincluding those in response to fears of ethnic changecan prop up anti-immigration laws indefinitely. I have previously argued that, far from trying to keep immigrants out, the United States should build a wall to keep them in.

Perpetuating the narrative of inevitable immigration has consequences for a countrys politics. Demographic analysis frequently suffers from what psychologists call desirability biasthe data appear to show exactly what the observer wishes to be true. For those who wish to welcome migrantsor who stand to benefit politically from demographic changethe presumption that the flow will always continue may breed inaction and complacency.

Read: The nativists won in Europe

In the U.S., that presumption made the Democratic Party overly confident about its long-term electoral prospects. Many Democrats came to believe that long-term demographic trends would inexorably produce a Democratic majority, Elaine Kamarck and William Galstonboth policy experts who served in the Clinton administrationargued in The Wall Street Journal in February. The expectation was that decades of robust immigration from Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region would steadily increase the diversity of the U.S. population. As these Americans entered the electorate, they would join forces with other people of colorespecially African-Americans and Native Americansto strengthen support for the Democratic Party.

But voters political affiliations are not fixed. Although people of color make up a growing share of younger voters, many Hispanic voters of all ages are shifting to the Republican Party, seemingly out of frustration with the Democratic platform or party norms that seem divorced from their values on a variety of issues, including immigration.

Of course, the narrative of inevitable immigration can also increase some voters resolve to keep would-be newcomers out. Governments respond to those pressures. Many democratic countries have used extreme measures to deter would-be asylum seekers from crossing into their borders. Australia has created offshore processing centers that prevent migrants from ever setting foot on the countrys soil; the U.S. has followed a Remain in Mexico policy to keep Central American migrants at bay; and the EU criminalized rescues at sea in 2017. In lieu of permanently settling refugees, Denmark chose to issue temporary residency permits in many cases, a move supported by politicians on both the right and the left. And now that many Danes are ready for those Syrians to leave, Denmark has instituted a plethora of policies designed to force them to return home, including a jewelry bill entitling the Danish government to seize asylum-seekers assets to build the countrys funds.

Immigration advocates, including those in the private sector who are hoping that immigrants will fill skills gaps, need to push for legal changes to increase immigration, rather than simply assuming that immigration will happen no matter what.

This piece is adapted from Sciubbas recent book, 8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death, and Migration Shape Our World.

When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

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The Mistaken Assumption That Immigration Is Inevitable - The Atlantic

The train from Lviv pulled into the Polish border town of Przemyl. While the 2,000 Ukrainians packed into its 600 seats waited to disembark, dozens of Polish soldiers entered a single car, emerging one by one cradling a precious cargo: more than 50 children with profound special needs, evacuated without their parents.

Such is the horror facing families in war-torn Ukraine that mothers and fathers are choosing to send children who are not able to fend for themselves across the border into the arms of strangers. They join the more than 3 million who have crossed into Poland among the more than 4 million who have fled the country since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24more than 800,000 of them through Przemyl alone.

We witnessed the flood of refugees arriving on foot, in wheelchairs or carried in arms, and the warm reception of Polish volunteers. Like other business leaders in our World Food Program U.S. delegation, we wanted to understand firsthand how to leverage the resources of our law firm and our community to help in the crisis, which grows worse by the day.

One thing is clear: Time is running out. The Ukrainians and Poles we spoke to sounded the alarm on the need to address two urgent human needs: food and safety.

President Bidens announcement on March 24 that the United States would accept 100,000 Ukrainians and donate $1 billion to European countries are welcome first steps, but the administration must swiftly follow this by expanding eligibility and streamlining intake and resettlement processes, which typically take years.

The business community, for its part, must coalesce to provide financial and logistical support for ongoing relief efforts. Even if the war ceases soon, Ukraines agricultural system and supply chains will not be rebuilt overnight, so food support will remain a priority, both in Ukraine and globally.The most direct way for American business to help now is to donate to organizations providing food security on the ground.

Story continues

As Putins army lays siege to Ukraine, leveling towns with the tactics of a medieval despot, the need for emergency food relief grows exponentially. Despite the danger, the World Food Program has been transporting food into Ukraine and distributing it in the war zone. The program needs more funding from our government, from corporations, and from individuals. Many other organizations on the ground need support.

Poland is shouldering the heaviest burden. We have seen how ordinary Poles are mobilized en masse. In Przemyl, a town that is no stranger to war, authorities and volunteers have set up a reception area stretching several blocks to register, feed, house, and transport the incoming refugees. There is soup, plus coffee, diapers, baby food, stuffed animals, warm clothes, medical supplies, and even free sim cards. Residents are opening their homes. The mayors own mother houses two Ukrainian families.

In the major city of Krakow, where the population has surged by a quarter, businesses have converted empty shopping malls, unused office buildings, warehouses, and train stations into dormitories for displaced Ukrainiansbut food and space will soon run out. We have to do it; we have to help, an 18-year-old volunteer told us.

Most Ukrainian families we met said they want to stay in Europe, as close as possible to home so that they can return when it is safe.To its credit, the European Union has changed course from past crises, opening its borders, providing temporary protected status for Ukrainians to remain in various EU countries, with authorization to work and access to medical care, education, and other public aid.

For those wishing to go to the United States, even to join family there, the path is unfathomably more difficult, as so many from other ravaged countries have found out.

As we waited on the platform in Przemyls train station, we spoke with a father and his 9-year-old twins, waiting for their mother to disembark. Putins soldiers had bombed their house, ransacked it, and taken over. One of the twins pulled out an object shed been clutching in her pocketa piece of shrapnel. She was keeping it, she told us, so that people would believe her familys story of terror.

The father was interested in coming to America.Despite our combined 80 years working in the legal system, we struggled to explain some aspects of U.S. immigration law: that the term refugee does not necessarily protect a family fleeing a war; that our system is aimed at providing refuge only to those who can meet the high bar of particularized discrimination against them; that our Temporary Protected Status applies only to those already in the U.S.

Ultimately, we found a few crevices in the existing law that might allow this family to squeeze through to freedom, and our firm will represent them (and others in similar positions) if that is their goal. For this family and so many others, the administrations recent announcements may provide real hope.

For those hopes to become a reality, the administration must move swiftly to promulgate the program rules, staff up, and expedite the process. And at least until we live in a world without cyclical humanitarian crises, we need an immigration law that is flexible enough to meet this kind of moment.

Loretta E. Lynch is a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and served as U.S. attorney general from 20152017. Steven Banks is special counsel in the firms pro bono practice and from 20142021 served as commissioner of the New York City Department of Social Services, the largest social services agency in the U.S.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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From the Ukraine-Poland border, an urgent call for support and immigration reform - Yahoo Finance

When former president Barack Obama was asked, in 2011, to stop the deportation of students with an executive order, he said he couldnt do it: There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply through executive order ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as President.

But he did it anyway a year later when he established the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program, which granted temporary lawful status to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States by their parents when they were children.

Then in 2014, he replaced the statutory classes of deportable aliens inINA section 1227 with his own list of deportable alien classes, which severely restricted who could be deported. Immigration officers needed approval from an ICE Field Office Director to take enforcement action against an immigrant who was not in one of those categories.

Obama justified his action by claiming that he was doing what he thought should be done until the passage of a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

The flaw in Obamas position is that if Democratic presidents can disregard the lawto fix the broken immigration systemuntil Congress acts with their version of a comprehensive immigration reform bill, Republican presidents will be able to ignore the fixes. Republicans have a very different view of how to fix the immigration system.

Biden has gone even further than Obama did.

Bidens DHS secretary, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, issued enforcement guidelines that replace the deportable alien grounds inINA section 1227 with priority categories that restrict deportation to immigrants who are a threat to our national security, to public safety, or to border security.

Mayorkas explained that the majority of undocumented immigrants who are subject to removal have been contributing members of our communities for years; therefore, the fact that an immigrant is removable should not alone be the basis for an enforcement action.

Biden also has cut more than 25 percent of the bed capacity at immigration detention facilities in his budget request for the next fiscal year. This would reduce funding for immigration enforcement beds from 34,000 to 25,000. CBP made 1.9 million arrestsfor illegal border crossings in the first year of the Biden presidency.

States experiencing the negative consequences of Bidens immigration policies, have been trying to stop him and they have had some successes. The most recent one occurred on March 22, when U.S. District Court Judge Michael J. Newman granted an application from Arizona, Montana, and Ohio (the states) for a preliminary injunction pending the outcome of a case that critically examines the public safety section of Bidens enforcement guidelines.

Judge Newmans decision

The Constitution of the United States gives significant authority to the president over immigration, which includes the discretion at every stage in the removal process to abandon the endeavor. But it gave Congress broad power over immigration too.

Congress has passed an Immigration and Nationality Act that includes classes of deportable aliens, provisions for the apprehension and detention of aliens, and provisions for the detention and removal of aliens ordered removed.

Some of these provisions are permissive, stating that DHS may take a certain action, but others are mandatory. And the Constitution has a Take Care clause that requires the president to ensure that the laws are faithfully executed.

INA section 1226(c)(1) provides that DHS shall take into custody immigrants who have committed specified criminal offenses, and INA section 1231(a)(1)(A) provides that DHS shall remove immigrants subject to final orders of removal within 90 days.

In the most recent lawsuit, the states contend that DHS is skirting the mandates in those statutory provisions with its enforcement guidelines, which, among other things, violates the Constitutions Take Care clause.

Public safety

The guidelines for this priority category specify that, Whether a noncitizen poses a current threat to public safety is not to be determined according to bright lines or categories. It instead requires an assessment of the individual and the totality of the facts and circumstances.

There can be aggravating factors that militate in favor of enforcement action, such as the gravity of the offense and the sentence imposed; the nature and degree of harm caused by the offense; the sophistication of the offense; and the use or threatened use of a dangerous weapon.

Conversely, there can be factors that militate in favor of declining enforcement action, such as advanced or tender age; lengthy presence in the United States; and the impact removal would have on family in the United States.

The overriding question is whether an evaluation of the individual and the totality of the facts and circumstances establish that the immigrant poses a threat to public safety.

Judges analysis

Bidens guidelines displace the custody and removal factors Congress intended immigration officials to consider with an extra-textual totality-of-the-circumstances analysis that governs every step in the enforcement process.

The guidelines provide that immigration officials should not rely on the fact of conviction or the result of a database search alone when making an enforcement-related decision. They must weigh the aggravating and mitigating factors against each other.

But INA section 1226(c) mandates the detention of immigrants who have committed certain enumerated offenses, and INA section 1227 provides that immigrants convicted of certain criminal offenses shall be removed.

Newman concludes that there is a strong likelihood that the states will prevail on their claim that Bidens public safety guidelines are unlawful. Accordingly, he issued a temporary injunction requiring DHS to refrain from implementing the guidelines.

The Take Care clause in the Constitution says that the president shall not may execute Congresss laws faithfully. As Obama once said, the man in the White House is a president, not a king.

Nolan Rappaportwas 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. Followhis blogathttps://nolanrappaport.blogspot.com.

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Immigration highlights the problem of when presidents act like kings - The Hill

WASHINGTON, March 31, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --Today, the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Labor (DOL) announced that they will exercise their discretionary authority to issue an additional 35,000 H-2B guestworker visas for the second half of the fiscal year. This move will further dampen wage prospects for struggling American workers who are falling further behind due to soaring inflation unleashed by the global pandemic and disastrous fiscal policies.

In announcing the release of 35,000 additional guestworker visas, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas assured the public that he recognizes "the importance of strong worker protections," and is committed to "applying greater scrutiny to those employers who have a record of violating obligations to their workers and the H-2B program."

The following is attributable to Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), in response to the forthcoming publication of a joint temporary final rule to make available an additional 35,000 H-2B guestworker visas for the second half of fiscal year (FY) 2022:

"Instead of incentivizing the return of millions of American workers to the labor force by allowing the laws of supply and demand to set competitive wages, the Biden administration is enabling employers to keep wages low and fill jobs with cheap foreign labor.

"Having opened the flood gates to millions of illegal aliens since taking office many of whom are already competing with lower-skilled American workers the Biden administration has found another avenue to allow more people to enter the country.

"In keeping with the administration's stance on all matters related to immigration policy, the secretary made no mention of true reforms to the program that will actually help American workers. In fact, under policy guidelines Mayorkas issued last fall, U.S. employers have been given carte blanche to bypass American workers in favor of guestworkers or illegal aliens, so long as they don't blatantly exploit them.

"Just another day at the office for a secretary of Homeland Security who is dedicated to ensuring that there are no limits on immigration, and another blow to the people he is supposed to protect," concluded Stein.

Contact: Preston Huennekens, 202-328-7004 or [emailprotected].

ABOUT FAIR

Founded in 1979, FAIR is the country's largest immigration reform group. With over 3 million members and supporters nationwide, FAIR fights for immigration policies that serve national interests, not special interests. FAIR believes that immigration reform must enhance national security, improve the economy, protect jobs, preserve our environment, and establish a rule of law that is recognized and enforced.

SOURCE Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)

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More Guestworkers Will Make it Even Harder for American Workers to Keep Up with Soaring Inflation, Charges FAIR - PR Newswire

When Deepasha Debnaths mom opened their Cupertino mailbox on a sunny February afternoon, she found the green cards her family had awaited for 12 years. But Deepasha did not receive one.

The 24-year-old grad student is part of a growing visa crisis hitting the children of Indian immigrants, many of them Silicon Valleys tech workers, a generation forgotten in immigration reform efforts.

Brought to the U.S. on their parents work visas, many have spent their entire childhood here as their families waited to gain legal permanent residence, a process that can take years and even decades for Indians because of visa backlogs. Yet as they turn 21, they lose their family status and face expulsion from the country.

They did not celebrate when they got their green cards, knowing that I did not receive it with them, Debnath said of her parents and younger brother.

Debnaths family arrived from India in 2006 when an American company hired her father. She was 9, and as her father worked for companies in the Bay Area, California became their home. In 2010, the family applied for green cards.

Deepasha Debnath points out a family photo from when she lived in India. She moved with her family to the U.S. at age 9, after her father was hired by a U.S. company in 2006. Despite growing up here, Deepasha may have to leave the U.S. due to a gap in immigration law.

When she turned 21 and lost her dependent child visa, immigration rules also eliminated her from the familys pending green card application. Debnath was in college at the time and managed to switch to a foreign student visa, extending her stay in the U.S. But she no longer has a path to permanent residency or citizenship. Her visa will end when she graduates.

Debnath is not alone. The Cato Institute estimates that 10,000 minors will turn 21 and age out of legal status in the country this year.

As Debnath has learned, there is no permanent solution for young adults like her. They are left to choose between staying with their family and becoming undocumented, or returning to a country they barely know.

Policymakers are increasingly aware of the plight of young people like Debnath, who have come to be known as documented Dreamers, a term some in the movement embrace for its increased political visibility, but others reject because they dont want to be viewed in competition with undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and have secured some protections in Washington.

Despite the advocacy of documented Dreamers, they have not succeeded in winning a fix in gridlocked Washington, instead finding themselves caught in the same political battles as many other immigrants seeking reform.

But unlike some policies that intentionally excluded groups from citizenship, the plight of Indian young people aging out is a product of an immigration system that hasnt been overhauled in three decades.

This is one of the many problems that crop up not through design but through neglect, said David Bier, an immigration expert at the libertarian Cato Institute. This is not an issue of Congress designing a problem into existence; its an oversight thats turned into a crisis.

Sumana Kaluvai (front) takes in her San Francisco rooftop view with other members of the Hidden Dream nonprofit she started to advocate for children of visa holders, who are losing their legal immigration status as they turn 21.

At the root of the issue are caps that limit the total number of green cards that can go each year to immigrants from any one country. For Indians, who came to the U.S. in growing numbers on high-skilled job visas after the dot-com boom and to join family already here, the wait times stretch for decades.

Theres hope that the issue could be addressed, at least temporarily, by President Biden and his Cabinet agencies.

The 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, originally applied to qualifying immigrants brought to the U.S. as children with no restrictions on legal status. But in implementation, the policy granted protections only to undocumented immigrants excluding those who age out of visas.

The Biden administration is seeking to create a more formal DACA program to protect it from court challenges, with several organizations and lawmakers urging the administration to simply include children of visa holders.

Another possibility, Bier said, is for the administration to let these children keep their place in line for green cards even after they age out. He argues that previous court decisions have given the administration that discretion.

The administration said it is considering its options, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a visa-granting agency of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement that it is exploring legal methods to provide relief. The White House said it is very aware of the hardships but laid the blame on Congress inaction.

Executive actions, even if they come through, would be only a patch. But the odds of passing any of the bills before Congress are dire.

The 2021 Americas Dream and Promise Act, which alongside undocumented Dreamers would create a pathway to citizenship for aging-out children of visa holders, passed the House by a slim bipartisan margin but stalled in the Senate.

The Americas Children Act, which would specifically tackle the aging-out issue, faces similarly long odds despite bipartisan support.

In the Senate, 60 votes are required to advance legislation, but getting 10 Republicans to join 50 Democrats on any immigration legislation especially one that increases the number of immigrants who can come to and stay in the U.S. would probably require significant border security measures and harsh cuts to other aspects of immigration such as asylum protections.

Deepasha Debnath and her brother Akshat in their Cupertino kitchen.

Those moves to mollify the Republican base are anathema to Democrats, leaving compromise at an impasse. Even if a deal could be reached with the right to move a narrow change, Democrats could face defections from progressive advocates who object to protecting some groups of vulnerable immigrants without the others.

California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla, one of the authors of the Americas Children Act, said he remains hopeful and called the situation for this group fundamentally unjust and unfair.

Still, in the decades-long cycle of disappointments for immigration reform advocates, what the documented Dreamers have accomplished is significant, said Rep. Zoe Lofgren of San Jose, who said she persuaded her fellow Democrats to include the group in their latest version of the Dream Act, first introduced more than 20 years ago.

It wasnt a hard lift to get it in, but I do give them credit for their advocacy in raising the issue, Lofgren said.

Dip Patel, who created the grassroots group Improve the Dream, said he and others were inspired by the undocumented Dreamer movement to begin their own efforts to educate lawmakers about the situation facing children of foreign workers.

Seeing that change can happen with how Dreamers had organized and how they were able to build a movement is also part of what inspired me to know that it is possible, Patel said. Our system shouldnt allow for us to grow up here, be raised here and be educated here and even after 20 years of living here not have a path to citizenship and possibly have to self-deport.

His organization is also working with California senators to amend the states Dream Act, which allows undocumented students to attend college and pay in-state tuition, but does not include students on visas.

Bier, who has been tracking the issue and other problems with the immigration system for years, said even in 2012, policymakers should have foreseen the crisis.

Every year its another 10,000 or so Dreamers losing status, Bier said. No one has done anything about it, and so its really building up; theres more and more people being impacted, the population whos affected is growing, and thats having political consequence.

On a recent Saturday night, a group of friends ate pizza and played the card game Were Not Really Strangers on the floor of Sumana Kaluvais San Francisco apartment. These children of Indian immigrants grew up in the U.S. and managed to transfer to student visas to finish their degrees, yet face the same unknown fate when they graduate.

Kaluvai drew a card, blushed, and read, Whats the first thing you noticed about me? One friend said it was her smile. Its bright and it hides a lot of the pain youve been through.

Kaluvai, 24, arrived in the U.S when she was 2. She turned 21 midway through her undergraduate studies at UCLA and now has five months left on her foreign student visa. Kaluvai has been accepted to various law schools for the fall, but worries that a new student visa might be denied. If that happens, then I will be undocumented, she said.

Kaluvai first felt her visa limitations when she was 17 and landed a job scooping ice cream, only to be told that her immigration status did not permit her to work.

I was like, Wow, I guess you can work hard and do everything quote-unquote right, but youre still going to be barred from some opportunities because of your immigration status.

One morning on the drive to school, her mother told her college might also be inaccessible unless she could get a foreign student visa and afford the high fees charged to international students.

That whole day I spent switching between bathroom stalls in my high school. I was just crying the whole day.

Kaluvai also decided to self-deport to India right before she aged off her H-4 dependent visa, advising that a visit to the U.S. Embassy in Chennai would speed up the process of getting a student visa. She almost got stuck in India when the consular official informed her it could take a lot longer than she had anticipated.

Sumana Kaluvai hosts a pizza night with her friends and fellow activists in San Francisco. Kaluvai is the founder of the Hidden Dream, which advocates for the children of visa holders who are losing their protected immigration status as they turn 21.

All these experiences turned the student into an activist. She began an organization, the Hidden Dream, to help young adults in her situation. The nonprofit runs courses in college prep, premed workshops and navigating the immigration system.

Kaluvai feels a kinship with Dreamers, also shut out of work and study opportunities because of their immigration status. As her organization grew now reaching 700 youths they began to push back on the think-tank-imposed label of documented Dreamer, which made her uncomfortable.

That just leads to a sentiment that one set of kids is better than the other set of kids; it just allows us to pit communities against one another, Kaluvai said. I think its much more powerful if we realize the commonalities between kids on visas and kids not on visas and use that to leverage our power and unite our voices and ask for change for all kids who grew up here.

This message of solidarity has been a hard sell inside her own community.

She confronted the rule-following nature of her green card backlog community when she was unable to get much participation in a national day of protest on Feb. 14, when immigrants were asked to walk off their jobs to demonstrate the countrys reliance on immigrant labor.

This is why our community isnt winning, Kaluvai said, because were not willing to take a unified stance and show people that were not going to show up to work.

Kaluvai gave up her dream of studying philosophy and chose bioengineering simply because immigration rules allow STEM students those in science, technology, engineering and math an extra two years to gain work experience before their visas expire. If she can get another student visa, she will accept one of her law school offers and plans to practice immigration and human rights law.

I (need) the skills to work in a field that Im actually passionate about.

Debnath is completing a masters degree at the University of San Francisco. With just months left before that course finishes, and then a 90-day grace period to find work in a highly competitive field, Debnath is frantically applying for jobs. She knows her chances are slim. As a foreign student, she will have to find an employer willing to do immigration paperwork to hire her, which includes showing there is a shortage of qualified American applicants.

I havent received a single call for an interview, Debnath said. Its devastating.

Deepa Fernandes and Tal Kopan are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: deepa.fernandes@sfchronicle.com, tal.kopan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @deepafern, @talkopan

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A visa crisis is hitting the children of Silicon Valley tech workers - San Francisco Chronicle