immigration – Page 55

An Easy Way to Take Pressure Off the Immigration System

Posted on February 14, 2021 by Lone Candle

“a significant number of applicants who had little interest in a permanent move but were nevertheless applying for immigrant visas. Perhaps the most common case was a grandmother who wanted to spend a year in the United States to help care for her grandchildren before returning to her family in Pakistan.

Our visa system takes a binary approach to immigration: You’re either an immigrant or a nonimmigrant. Since visitor visas are limited to six months, a grandmother who applied for a standard B1/B2 visitor visa and truthfully told a consular officer she expected to stay a year would likely be denied for not intending to follow the conditions of her visa.
As a result, I regularly heard from applicants that visa advisers—consultants who sell advice to help applicants navigate the U.S. visa process—would counsel family members, if eligible, to apply for immigrant visas instead, even though they lacked immigrant intent.”
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“Rather than encourage people to apply for immigrant visas they do not need, several other countries, including Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, have all adopted hybrid visa categories melding aspects of both immigrant and nonimmigrant visas exactly for these parent and grandparent applicants.
The United States should do the same.”
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“creating a new hybrid visa category to draw some immigrant visa demand to a new hybrid nonimmigrant category should shorten processing times.”
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“hybrid visa helps protect social benefits by limiting the number of individuals eligible. There is currently no cap on the number of parents and grandparents who wish to become U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Elderly parents and grandparents eventually earn social benefits in the United States no matter what age they immigrate regardless of whether they paid into the system (with some restrictions).”
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“The United States could copy the Canadians and Australians and require hybrid visa holders to purchase U.S. medical insurance and thereby contribute to their cost of health care. These visa holders would also not become eligible for social benefits, helping to reassure taxpayers they can support higher levels of visa approvals and family reunification without risking unfunded financial commitments.”
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“a hybrid visa fills a gap between immigrant and nonimmigrant travel, for example, by allowing loved ones extended visits to help with the birth of a child, support a sick relative or provide child care to facilitate a son or daughter working outside the home.”
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“When I adjudicated immigrant visas in Islamabad, we would often see applicants stuck between visa classes, especially parents and grandparents who had one child in the United States but others in their home country, with whom they would also want to spend extended time. There was simply no way in our system to align the purpose of their travel to one of our visa categories.”

Trump’s last stand on immigration

Posted on January 31, 2021 by Lone Candle

“Immigrants have applied to become US citizens in increasing numbers since Trump took office, which some policy analysts say is the effect of the president’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. But the path hasn’t been easy. They’re facing ballooning processing times, higher fees, more intensive vetting, and the possibility of later losing their citizenship at the hands of the Justice Department’s “denaturalization section.”

As of December 1, they also have to pass an updated, more difficult citizenship test. And on November 18, the Trump administration also updated its policy guidance to advise officials at US Citizenship and Immigration Services to scrutinize citizenship applicants about how they obtained their green cards, among other factors, changes that immigration advocates argue will result in longer processing times and more denials.

Both changes represent additional barriers to citizenship for the roughly 9.2 million immigrants living in the US who are eligible to naturalize.”

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“The Trump administration has pursued a vast regulatory agenda aimed at curbing asylum and other humanitarian protections for migrants arriving on the southern border.

As part of a last-minute push, it issued a death blow to the system on Thursday with a sweeping final regulation that would bar huge swaths of asylum seekers from obtaining protection, including those who face persecution on the basis of gender and resistance to gang recruitment, and as victims of criminal coercion. Those targeted by international criminal gangs like MS-13 will therefore likely face a much narrower path to asylum under the rule.”

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“The Biden administration would have to issue new regulations to rescind any of the regulations Trump has finalized, including likely going through the burdensome process of giving the public notice and the opportunity to comment. It could also try to revise any regulations subject to ongoing litigation through a court settlement.”

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“Though Trump has often claimed that he supports legal immigration, he has put up substantial barriers to foreign workers and is continuing to do so in his final days in office.

Trump issued an executive order earlier this year that froze the issuance of visas for most foreign workers applying from outside the US through the end of the year on account of Covid-19, and he is expected to extend that order. President-elect Joe Biden has criticized the policy, calling it a “yet another attempt to distract” from his administration’s “failure to lead an effective response to COVID-19.” He told NBC News in June that the policy “will not be in my administration.”

The Trump administration is also pursuing regulations that would hamstring the health care industry, universities, nonprofits, and businesses that rely on foreign talent.”

Biden rescinds Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy that enabled family separation

Posted on January 30, 2021 by Lone Candle

“The Biden administration has ended former President Donald Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy, which provided the underpinnings for family separation by seeking to prosecute every migrant who crossed the border without authorization.

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop the separations in 2018 — after more than 5,000 families were separated. Attorneys still can’t find the parents of more than 600 children; many of the parents were deported back to their home countries, while others are believed to be in the US. Biden has promised to create a task force to work on family reunification, and an announcement is expected later this week.

The Department of Justice issued a memo on Tuesday night rescinding the policy, which was implemented in April 2018 under then-US Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Acting US Attorney General Monty Wilkinson wrote Tuesday that the policy was “inconsistent” with the DOJ’s mandate to consider individual circumstances — including criminal history, the seriousness of the offense and the potential sentence or other consequences of conviction — when making decisions to charge people with the crime of crossing the border without authorization.

Trump officials claimed that they had no choice under the zero-tolerance policy but to prosecute and detain the adults while sending the children to other facilities designed to administer their care. But the officials ignored the possibility of releasing the families from detention together, as prior administrations had done.”

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“The Trump administration started separating families in immigration detention back in 2017, beginning with a pilot program in El Paso, Texas. The practice was later expanded along the border in the spring of 2018, when Sessions announced the zero-tolerance policy.

Parents were sent to immigration detention to await deportation proceedings. Their children, meanwhile, were sent to separate facilities designed to hold children and, in some cases, released to other family members in the US or to foster homes. Previous administrations, in most cases, would have simply released the families from detention together if there was insufficient room in family detention facilities.”