Over 250,000 Young People Are at Risk of Deportation When They Turn 21

 

By: Katy Murdza www.immigrationimpact.com/

A lesser-known group of young people who grew up in the United States with immigration status—typically the children of noncitizens who entered the U.S. on temporary work visas—is increasingly at risk of deportation.

They are known as Documented Dreamers, and when these young adults turn 21, they “age out” of their previous lawful status, which was tied to their parents’ visas. They are then required to seek and obtain immigration status on their own or to depart the country. If they fail to depart, they run the risk of being subjected to immigration enforcement and potential deportation.

If a parent can adjust to Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR) status, also known as a green card, before their children turn 21, the children are eligible to obtain permanent residency through the same process. But many temporary workers are not eligible to adjust their status. And others are trapped in years-long green card backlogs, like many immigrant workers from India and China, more information  https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a5314-young-people-are-at-risk-of-deportation.html

USCIS Changes Policy On Fee Waivers, Potentially Deterring Thousands Of Citizenship Applications

By Melissa Cruz

The cost of filing an application for citizenship—usually a hefty $725—has long been a barrier for some immigrants. Now, a change to the naturalization process may leave even more people priced out of becoming a U.S. citizen.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently announced a new policy that will change how the agency determines eligibility for a waiver of its application fees. It is set to go into effect December 2.

The policy will narrow the fee waiver eligibility for those applying for citizenship, green cards in certain categories, work permits, and other immigration benefits.

Currently, USCIS has a straightforward way of determining eligibility for a fee waiver. If an applicant receives a means-tested benefit—such as Medicaid or supplemental food assistance—then they automatically qualify for a fee waiver. As of 2017, approximately 40% of all citizenship applicants requested this fee waiver; most did so by showing they received a means-tested benefit.

The new policy will eliminate the means-tested benefit from the eligibility criteria.

Under the change, people may only request a fee waiver if they can prove their annual household income is at or below 150% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines or if they can demonstrate financial hardship by some other means.

The two remaining alternatives are more difficult to prove. They require substantial documentation and often the help of an attorney. Sifting through this documentation would likely be more time-consuming for an already overburdened USCIS, creating even greater backlogs.

Filing fees may be out of reach for many people, including low-income immigrants, the elderly, and families that file more than one application at a time. With limited ways to get a fee waiver, some people may be deterred from applying for immigration benefits—including citizenship—at all.

The policy change is one of many attacks the Trump administration has made against legal immigration. It comes just two weeks after the Trump administration’s public charge rule got struck down in several federal courts. The rule would have made it easier for the government to deny a green card to immigrants it deemed likely to receive certain public benefits in the future, including non-cash benefits like Medicaid or food stamps. The widely condemned rule , and its counterpart for immigrant visa applicants, was also seen as a “wealth test” for those wanting to live in the United States.

This latest policy change creates more obstacles for people navigating our immigration system. Our process should encourage people to become U.S. citizens, not turn them away with high fees and inflexible criteria.

 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4585-USCIS-Changes-Policy-on-Fee-Waivers.html

USCIS Processing Times Get Even Slower Under Trump

By Walter A. Ewing, Ph.D. 

The Trump administration has slowed the processing of immigration benefit applications to a crawl, causing needless harm to immigrants, their families, and their employers. Under President Trump, the backlog of applications at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) doubled in the span of only one year. 

A recent analysis of USCIS data by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) refers to these “crisis-level delays” as “bricks in the Trump administration’s ‘invisible wall’ curbing legal immigration in the United States.” 

The numbers bear this out. According to AILA’s analysis, the average case processing time for all application types has increased 46 percent since Fiscal Year (FY) 2016—the last full fiscal year of the Obama administration. These escalating delays have occurred even when the number of new applications has fallen. For instance, from FY 2017 to 2018, processing times increased by 19 percent even though receipts of new applications declined 17 percent. So the delays cannot be plausibly blamed on rising workload. 

In fact, this state of affairs is exactly the opposite of what USCIS was intended to do. When USCIS was created in 2002, elimination of application backlogs—and prevention of future backlogs—were explicit priorities of the new agency. USCIS was meant to be an agency that provided immigration benefits to customers; it was not intended to function like an enforcement agency. 

But the tables have turned in the Trump era, with the institution of new security protocols that needlessly drag out the processing of virtually every application. For instance, in-person interviews are now required for each and every employment-based green card applicant. The administration’s overhaul of the refugee program has also brought processing of many cases to a complete standstill. 

From FY 2017 to FY 2018, the processing time of an N-400 (Application for Naturalization) rose from 8 months to over 10. Processing an I-485 (Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status) went from 8 to 11 months. And the processing time of an I-765 (Application for Work Authorization) rose from 3 to 4 months. 

Delays of this magnitude have serious repercussions when people can’t get a job, join their families, or escape refugee camps. The report cautions: 

“Longer processing times mean families struggle to make ends meet, survivors of violence and torture face danger, and U.S. companies fall behind.” 

The report suggests USCIS should begin providing service to its customers again rather than approaching everyone as a security risk. It also urges Congress to exercise some oversight authority over the agency, which has been sorely lacking during the past two years. Finally, USCIS operations should be made more transparent to the public so it is clear why applications take so long to process. 

USCIS processing delays and application backlogs under the Trump administration are having a devastating impact on the legal immigration system. This, in turn, is having an unnecessarily negative effect on families and employers across the country. 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com

http://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4010-USCIS-Processing-Times-Get-Even-Slower.html

How Long Does It Take USCIS to Issue a Green Card?

Written by Tory Johnson

How long does it take to process an application for permanent residence in the United States, or a “green card?” You might be surprised by how difficult it is to find a reliable answer to this common question. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)—the agency that adjudicates applications for permanent residence and other immigration benefits—provides a range as a way to estimate the time needed to process an immigration application.

The agency introduced a pilot program in March that changed how USCIS estimates these time ranges for four of its most popular types of application. The change follows longstanding criticism about inaccurate processing times from federal oversight offices, elected officials, and stakeholders. Applicants and immigration practitioners have reported that USCIS’ posted processing times do not reflect the actual time it takes a case to reach completion.

Previously, USCIS published processing times for all types of applications and petitions as a single figure in months, a specific date, and even in relation to a goal processing time.

The agency now uses an automated methodology in an attempt to more accurately estimate how long it will take to process certain common immigration benefit filings. According to USCIS, an application for permanent residence (Form I-485) will take anywhere from 7 months to 33 months to process. The time range fluctuates depending on the office location, basis for the filing, and other factors.

The pilot program only applies to the following four immigration forms:

• N-400, Application for Naturalization
• I-90, Application to Replace Permanent Resident Card
• I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status
• I-751, Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence

Although the calculation method being piloted may improve accuracy in some ways, concerns remain. The pilot program includes only four of the many fee-based immigration forms USCIS adjudicates. Additionally, the ranges are still estimates, have broad variation, and do not reflect the complexity of many cases.

For example, “in the case of a foreign national applying for an employment-based green card, an employer must file an I-140 Immigration Petition for Alien Worker and the worker must also submit a Form I-485 to adjust status to permanent residence, when a visa number is immediately available.” USCIS will process these forms sequentially—meaning the time it takes to adjudicate each form and related steps must be added together to get an approximate estimate of processing time. USCIS processing time methodology does not account for such complexity. USCIS provides time ranges as processing time estimates for other immigration filings as well, however there is significantly less transparency about the agency’s calculation method.

Accessing this information is particularly important given the longstanding backlog of filings at USCIS. An application or petition that allows a person to work or travel internationally may be pending for several months to many years, leaving applicants—or employers petitioning for potential or current employees—in limbo for indeterminant times.

Accurate processing time estimates can significantly affect the lives of applicants, employers, and the local communities they support. USCIS should prioritize transparency in its methods while improving the accuracy of processing times. Doing so not only supports the agency’s mission but would support economic and social stability in the United States—a benefit for everyone. 

 

Source: www. immigrationimpact.com   

http://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a3864-How-Long-Does-Take-to-Issue-a-Green-Card.html

USCIS Is Slowly Being Morphed Into an Immigration Enforcement Agency

Written by Joshua Breisblatt

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued new guidance to initiate deportation proceedings for thousands of applicants denied for any immigration benefit. This policy change will have far-reaching implications for many of those interacting with the agency, but also signals a major shift in how USCIS operates. 

USCIS was never meant to be tasked with immigration enforcement. Their mandate has always been administering immigration benefits. With its distinct mission, USCIS was created to focus exclusively on their customer service function , processing applications for visas, green cards, naturalization, and humanitarian benefits. 

The new USCIS guidance instructs staff to issue a Notice to Appear (NTA) to anyone who is unlawfully present when an application, petition, or benefit request is denied. This will include virtually all undocumented applicants, as well as those individuals whose lawful status expires while their request is pending before USCIS. 

An NTA (Form I-862) is a charging document issued to individuals when there are grounds for deporting them from the United States. The NTA is issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and USCIS. It must be served to the individual and presented to the immigration court for removal proceedings to be triggered. When someone receives an NTA, they must appear before an immigration judge at an assigned date and location to determine if they are eligible to remain in the country legally or should be removed. 

NTAs are traditionally issued under certain situations, such as terminations of conditional permanent residence, referrals of asylum cases, and positive credible fear findings. 

Beginning immediately, NTAs will also be issued by USCIS: 

• For denials of an initial application or re-registration for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) or a withdrawal of TPS when the applicant has no other lawful immigration status.
• When fraud, misrepresentation, or evidence of abuse of public benefit programs is part of an individual’s record, even if the application or petition has been denied for other reasons.
• When someone is under investigation or arrested for any crime, regardless of a conviction, if the application is denied and the person is removable.
• When USCIS issues an unfavorable decision and the individual is not lawfully present in the United States.

A second policy memorandum issued at the same time as the new NTA guidance makes applicants for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) the exception to this new NTA policy. 

This move essentially ends all prosecutorial discretion, a key tool used by law enforcement and prosecutors all over the country to effectively prioritize cases. In the past, immigration agencies used prosecutorial discretion when deciding under what circumstances to issue NTAs. 

Past leaders of USCIS have issued memos against the practice of widespread NTA issuance, noting it was impractical, would divert scarce resources, create longer wait times, and clog the immigration courts. Further, denials of immigration benefits applications are often reversed upon reconsideration or appeal. This means that thousands of cases that will ultimately be approved will be needlessly tossed onto the dockets of an already overburdened court system. If an immigration benefit request is approved on appeal, the individual must then seek termination of proceedings, which consumes even more court resources. With over 700,000 cases already in the court backlog , it’s inconceivable for the agency to manage many thousands more. 

This new NTA policy is both overbroad and short-sighted, not taking into account the practical effects on government resources or the chilling effect it will have on noncitizens needing to apply for or renew benefits. Our complex immigration system will become even more inefficient, burdensome, and confusing. 

Source: www. immigrationimpact.com 

http://inmigracionyvisas.com/a3846-USCIS-Into-an-Immigration-Enforcement-Agency.html