PANEL: Parole and the CBP One App – Fact and Fiction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EW1uz0Qvvc
Tag: immigrants
Biden Administration’s Illegal Immigration System
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD4D1tOjV4w
Green Card Process ‘Utterly Failing’ To Help Immigrants ‘Pursue the American Dream in Lawful and Orderly Ways’
“Only 3 percent of the people who have applied for green cards will receive one in FY 2024, as the backlog continues to grow and migrants continue to choose illegal migration pathways in large numbers. Today’s green card processing “reveals a legal immigration system that is utterly failing to direct aspiring immigrants to pursue the American dream in lawful and orderly ways,” wrote David J. Bier, associate director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, in a report released last week.
About 1.1 million green cards may be issued in FY 2024, but there are currently 34.7 million pending applications. The backlog has its roots in the Immigration Act of 1924 and subsequent eligibility restrictions. While 98.1 percent of immigrant applicants were allowed to enter the country with permanent status from 1888 to 1921, just 16 percent of applicants were admitted in an average year once caps were imposed, per Bier. The rate fell to 3.8 percent in 2023.
Adding to the problem is the fact that the government has let 6.3 million green cards go to waste since 1921, failing to meet caps in large part due to processing delays.
Certain nationalities and green card categories experience more severe backlogs and selective processing. “Indians—who make up half the applicants in the employer-sponsored categories—must wait more than a century for a green card,” wrote Bier. People who try their luck at the green card lottery, which currently has about 22.2 million applicants, only have a 1 in 400 chance of getting a green card in a given year. Some who apply for family-based green cards “will face lifetime waits for many country-category combinations,” according to Bier.
By granting green cards to such a low percentage of applicants each year, the U.S. is leaving a lot of potential growth on the table. “Backlogged immigrants are likely to enter the United States and start working at higher rates than the general population, and they also appear to be more educated on average,” wrote Bier. And beyond being an important addition to the labor force, immigrants are helping to reduce the massive federal budget deficit and stave off population decline.
The Cato report suggests that Congress do away with “the unnecessarily onerous rules and arbitrary caps to approve current green card applicants.” After tackling the existing backlog, policy changes could be more modest, since “annual legal immigration would only need to increase more gradually to meet future demand.”
This report echoes the findings of June 2023 Cato Institute research, which found that “fewer than 1 percent of people who want to move permanently to the United States can do so legally.” A variety of factors keep people from qualifying for the existing green card categories, including low annual visa caps, a lack of U.S.-based sponsors (either employers or qualifying family members), narrow definitions of eligible nationalities, and cost.”
https://reason.com/2024/02/21/green-card-process-utterly-failing-to-help-immigrants-pursue-the-american-dream-in-lawful-and-orderly-ways/
Texas seized part of the US-Mexico border and blocked federal Border Patrol agents. Here’s what happened next
Texas seized part of the US-Mexico border and blocked federal Border Patrol agents. Here’s what happened next
https://www.yahoo.com/news/texas-seized-part-us-mexico-103113344.html
‘Zero Illegal Crossings’ Is an Unattainable Goal for the Border
“The U.S. government, for all the money and agents it’s thrown at the border over the past several decades, has never been able to practically “shut down the border” or achieve zero illegal crossings (all the legal issues with those proposals aside).
Between the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 and January 2021, the U.S. has spent $333 billion to fund the agencies tasked with immigration enforcement, according to the American Immigration Council, a pro-immigration nonprofit. The budgets for those agencies have been rising for years.
But more enforcement money hasn’t necessarily led to lower illegal crossings. As budgets have gone up, apprehensions of people who crossed the border between authorized ports of entry have gone up, down, and remained static. In other words, they don’t cleanly align: Though Customs and Border Protection reported 2.05 million apprehensions in FY 2023, it reported somewhat close to that number—over 1.5 million—in FY 2000. Annual apprehensions hovered below 500,000 from FY 2010 through FY 2018.”
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“The U.S.-Mexico border stretches nearly 2,000 miles, much of it treacherous. No matter the funding and no matter the enforcement mandate, there’s no way that agents could stop every illegal crosser traversing the deserts, mountains, and waters that make up the border region. That’s proven impossible along much smaller and more surveilled borders, such as the boundaries of East Germany and North Korea.”
https://reason.com/2024/02/02/zero-illegal-crossings-is-an-unattainable-goal-for-the-border/
The Supreme Court may let Texas get away with a totally unconstitutional deportation law
“For well more than a century, the federal government has enjoyed near exclusive authority over immigration policy, while states have largely been restricted to assisting in carrying out federal policies. The Supreme Court has reinforced this rule many times over many decisions, such as Truax v. Raich (1915), which said that “the authority to control immigration — to admit or exclude aliens — is vested solely in the Federal Government.”
Texas, however, now wants the Supreme Court to abandon this longstanding constitutional rule, and it thinks that the political tumblers have finally aligned in a way that would lead the Court to do just that.
Texas seeks to upend the longstanding balance of power between the federal government and the states through a law, known as SB 4, which allows Texas state courts to issue deportation orders that will be carried out by Texas state officials. The law is now before the Supreme Court in two “shadow docket” cases, known as United States v. Texas and Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy v. McCraw.”
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“The reason why the federal government has historically had exclusive authority over nearly all questions of immigration policy is to prevent a single state’s mistreatment of a foreign national from damaging US relations with another nation. Indeed, Hines v. Davidowitz (1941) warned that “international controversies of the gravest moment, sometimes even leading to war, may arise from real or imagined wrongs” committed against foreign nationals.
Which isn’t to say that the United States must always treat foreign citizens with caution or deference — just that a decision that could endanger the entire nation’s relationship with a foreign state should be made by a government that represents the entire nation.”
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“the current Supreme Court has only a weak attachment to following precedent, especially when a precedent is widely disliked by modern-day Republicans. So there is at least some risk that the Court’s GOP-appointed majority will allow SB 4 to go into effect.”
https://www.vox.com/scotus/2024/3/12/24097438/supreme-court-texas-deportation-sb4-unconstitutional-border-migrants
Surging Immigration Will Reduce Deficits by $1 Trillion
“Higher levels of immigration are boosting America’s economy and will reduce the deficit by about $1 trillion over the next decade.
In its semi-annual forecast of the country’s fiscal and economic conditions, released this week, the Congressional Budget Office slightly lowered its expectations for this year’s federal budget deficit. The CBO now expects the federal government to run a $1.5 trillion deficit, down from the $1.6 trillion deficit previously forecast.
That reduction is due in part to higher-than-expected economic growth, which the CBO attributes to “more people working.” The labor force has grown by 5.2 million people in the past year, “mostly because of higher net immigration.””
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“It also tracks with what other studies have repeatedly shown: More legal immigration grows the economy, helps fund government programs, and doesn’t strain entitlement or welfare programs.
Unfortunately, the very same Congress that bears most of the responsibility for the federal government’s poor fiscal state is also a major hurdle to increasing legal immigration that could help solve some of that fiscal mess.”
https://reason.com/2024/02/08/surging-immigration-will-reduce-deficits-by-1-trillion/
Why are so many Chinese crossing the southern border?
“The migrants say they are leaving due to a slump in China’s economy as it struggles to rebound from the COVID pandemic, as well as to escape strict lockdowns and restrictions.
“The unemployment rate is very high. People cannot find work,” Xi Yan, a Chinese writer who crossed the border in April, told the Associated Press. “For small business owners, they cannot sustain their businesses.”
In June, China’s unemployment rate for 16-to-24-year-olds reached 21.3%, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Sin Yen Ling, a spokesperson for the Asian American civil rights group Chinese for Affirmative Action, told the Austin American-Statesman that Beijing’s “recent crackdown on industries such as tech, real estate and education where young people have traditionally sought jobs have contributed to the high unemployment rate.”
Visas granted to Chinese nationals to work, visit or study in the U.S. have also become increasingly hard to come by, leading to the spike in finding alternate ways into the country due to recent tensions between China and the U.S.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-are-so-many-chinese-crossing-the-southern-border-172637085.html
Fact Check: Charges dropped after suspect misidentified in attack on NYPD officers
“Charges against a man initially arrested as a suspect for attacking police officers in New York City were dropped, according to the Manhattan District Attorney, because he had been misidentified as a participant in the January 2024 brawl, not because crime by a “migrant” has “no consequences,” as suggested in social media posts.
Posts on social media, opens new tab shared a photograph showing a 22-year-old Venezuelan man, Jhoan Boada, with captions such as: “The Manhattan DA just dropped all charges against Jhoan Boada, 22, migrant who flipped the bird at photographers following his involvement in a gang attack on the NYPD. No consequences.”
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“The Manhattan DA’s office said in an email, citing court documents, that, “After a thorough and diligent investigation, Jhoan Boada has been exonerated as a participant in this assault” and that the complaint against Boada was dismissed.
The DA’s office told the court that another man, Marcelino Estee, had been identified as the person described in the complaint as “wearing the black & white jacket with pink shoes, committing this assault” and that Estee had been charged for his participation.”
https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/charges-dropped-after-suspect-misidentified-attack-nypd-officers-2024-03-13/
Immigration ‘parole’ is a well-worn tool for US presidents. It faces a big test in 2024 elections
“Berioskha Guevara has no words to describe her happiness living in the United States. After decades of fear as a political opponent in Venezuela and struggles to buy staples like milk and bread, the 53-year-old chemist feels she is dreaming.
Guevara and her 86-year-old father came to the U.S. under the sponsorship of her brother, a pharmacist who left after Hugo Chavez took power in 1999.
“Now we are like in paradise,” said Guevara, who arrived in July 2023. “I can’t stop smiling, making plans, thanking God because without parole I would never have been able to live my dreams as I am living them now.”
More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have fled the country as it went into an economic tailspin over the last decade. They are increasingly headed to the United States, which prompted the Biden administration to offer parole to 30,000 people a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Texas and 20 other states sued, saying the administration “effectively created a new visa program —without the formalities of legislation from Congress” but does not challenge large-scale parole for Afghans and Ukrainians. A judge has yet to rule after an August trial.
In Venezuela, Guevara graduated in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and for the last decade worked at a foreign private oil company earning $200 a month. It was a relatively good salary for Venezuelans, but inflation was very high, and food scarce. She worried about being arrested for being an opponent of the government.
In the U.S., four months after filing for work authorization, she got a job at a supermarket. She is looking for work that would use her chemistry background while living with her father in her brother’s one-bedroom apartment in Orlando, Florida.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/immigration-parole-well-worn-tool-202612196.html