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 Wants To Make It Harder For Asylum Seekers To Get Work Permits

By Emily Creighton www.immigrationimpact.com

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently proposed a rule that will further delay asylum seekers’ ability to receive work authorization.

Under current law, USCIS must grant or deny an initial asylum applicant’s employment authorization application within 30 days. Under the proposed rule, USCIS would have no time frame in which it must decide the initial application.

An asylum applicant already must wait at least six months before receiving employment authorization if their asylum application has not already been decided. The 30-day rule allows an asylum applicant to apply for work authorization at the 150-day mark and have a decision by day 180.

Even with the 30-day rule, USCIS historically took far longer than 30 days to decide applications for employment authorization until a class-action lawsuit challenged the agency’s failure to comply with the 30-day deadline. In 2018, the court ordered USCIS to follow the 30-day rule. The agency now would like to reverse these developments.

USCIS states that the rule change will help “ensure USCIS has sufficient time to receive, screen and process” applications for employment authorization, but the agency seems laser-focused on fraud, stating that it needs more time to “reduce opportunities for fraud and protect the security-related processes” as it decides applications.

The agency, however, provides no evidence of fraud or security-related concerns related to the employment authorization process. It only vaguely references additional vetting and background checks that may take longer than 30 days.

Instead of devoting resources to comply with the regulatory time frame, USCIS is relinquishing responsibility for helping asylum applicants become self-sufficient as quickly as possible.

The impact of the delay caused by eliminating the 30-day rule would be multi-fold.

According to USCIS, the lost compensation to asylum applicants could range from approximately $255 to $744.76 million annually. Annual employment tax losses to the government could range from $39.15 to $118.54 million.

If this proposed rule goes into effect, asylum seekers will have even less assurance that they will be able to support themselves or their family during what is often a long and difficult asylum application process.

USCIS is in fact working against the idea that asylum applicants—who often have limited community connections and few resources—should independently support themselves as quickly as possible. The agency invokes security and fraud concerns to distract from its failure to meet a basic bureaucratic mandate—to timely adjudicate applications for employment authorization.

 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4480-USCIS-Harder-for-Asylum-Seekers-to-Get-Work-Permits.html

Immigrant Children With Cancer, HIV, Cerebral Palsy Threatened With Deportation

By Walter Ewing www.immigrationimpact.com 

Without so much as a formal announcement, the Trump administration sent letters to families of sick children containing a dire warning: leave the country in 33 days or face deportation and a years-long ban on returning. Many of those who received a letter last week are Boston-based immigrants whose children suffer from cancer, cystic fibrosis, and HIV, among other illnesses.

Up until now, the children and their families had benefited from a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) program known as “medical deferred action.” This program allows immigrant families to remain in the United States for two-year periods if they can prove that a family member needs life-saving treatment for “serious medical conditions.” Many of the families in the program entered the United States through a visa or another legal channel. Deferred action enabled them to stay so the family member could receive medical treatment. 

USCIS says medical deferred action has been revised and is now limited to the foreign-born relatives of U.S. military service members. 

This abrupt change in policy—reportedly implemented with no formal notice on August 7—leaves the future of many children in doubt. Children who are now receiving treatment for illnesses such as epilepsy, cerebral palsy, and muscular dystrophy will be forced to return to countries where the medical treatment they need to survive may not exist. 

Some parents of the children, as well as several U.S. public officials, regard the new policy as a de facto death sentence. 

For instance, 16-year-old Jonathan Sanchez has been receiving treatment for cystic fibrosis for three years at Boston Children’s Hospital. With continued treatment, he has a life expectancy of 37 years. But if he is forced back home to Honduras? His mother puts it simply: “He would die.” In fact, his sister died of cystic fibrosis 18 years ago in Honduras. 

Not surprisingly, USCIS’s decision to deport seriously ill children has been met with fierce criticism. 

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh called the new policy “absurd and inhumane.” And Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey wrote, “the Trump administration is now literally deporting kids with cancer.” 

A USCIS spokesman told one media outlet that the new policy does not definitively take deferred action off the table, but that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will now consider requests for temporary relief from deportation. The letters sent by USCIS, however, don’t mention the transition to ICE. The letters simply state that “when you submitted your request [for deferred action] you were present in the United States contrary to law” and have 33 days to leave, or else the federal government will begin removal proceedings. Many families reportedly did not even receive the letters in their mailboxes until halfway through the 33-day period. 

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Massachusetts is exploring possible legal action against the federal government over this new policy. 

It is not yet known how many people are affected by the change or if letters have been sent to anyone outside of the Boston area. Yet for the families who received notice of the shift, the fear is immediate. 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4426-Sick-immigrants-Threatened-with-deportation.html

Closing USCIS International Offices Will Leave US Citizens, Abroad Without Help

Written by Angelica Duron

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ international field offices provide critical services to Americans living abroad, as well as refugees and other immigrants. But in a supposed effort to cut costs, the Trump administration plans to close all 23 offices that span 21 countries by the end of 2019.

These offices are a lifeline for those living abroad who need to access the complex U.S. immigration system. They offer help with immigration applications that could otherwise face serious processing delays. In some cases, without the help of the offices, these applications could be stalled for over a year. 

Some of the services USCIS’ offices provide include: 

• Facilitating international adoptions.
• Assisting military families stationed abroad with applying for U.S. citizenship.
• Reuniting American citizens with dying family members that live in the United States. The U.S. citizen may need to travel with a foreign national spouse and require expedited paperwork.
• Issuing travel documents.
• Interviewing and assisting those applying for refugee status in the United States.
• Providing immigration expertise to federal entities and foreign governments.

In an internal agency memo last month, USCIS Director Lee Francis Cissna informed employees of the planned closures. The agency argues the move will reduce the backlog of immigration cases in the United States. Officials hope to lower the number of pending asylum applications in particular. 

USCIS claims it will save millions of dollars by shifting its international offices’ duties to its domestic offices and the State Department. But the plan to close international USCIS offices faces opposition from Congress. 

61 Congressmembers sent a letter earlier this month to ask for funding that would keep the offices open. It points out this is an ill-considered and underhanded attempt to decrease immigration. 

The planned closure of international offices is not unique in that respect. The Trump administration’s 2020 budget proposal significantly reduces State Department funds for humanitarian aid and all but eliminates a bureau that assists refugees. It also diverts USCIS’ regular application fees to the nation’s deficit, rather than to fund the agency itself. 

By closing USCIS offices abroad and decreasing funding for other agencies, it is becoming more difficult to navigate the immigration system. This leaves U.S. citizens, our military members, and others living abroad without accessible help. 

 

 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com  

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4137-Closing-USCIS-International-Offices-Will.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

DACA Is Still In Effect As It Heads To The Supreme Court

Written by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stinging rebuke to President Trump’s ongoing efforts to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative last week, unanimously upholding a lower court injunction which had blocked the Trump administration from ending the program. 

Just three days before that hearing, the Department of Justice (DOJ) took the unusual step of asking the Supreme Court to bypass the appeals process and hear the DACA case before the Ninth Circuit issued a decision. Now that the Ninth Circuit has ruled, the Supreme Court could take up the case as early as next spring—with DACA remaining in effect until they rule. 

Back in September 2017, the administration announced that it would be ending DACA, the initiative which allows undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children to receive temporary permission to remain in the country. Multiple lawsuits challenging the termination of DACA soon followed. 

In one of those challenges, a federal court in San Francisco found that the administration’s termination of DACA was “based on a flawed legal premise” and ordered the government to continue processing renewal applications. Courts in New York and the District of Columbia soon followed suit with similar orders, which remain on appeal. 

The Ninth Circuit’s decision concluded the same. Though DOJ had argued the original DACA initiative was illegal and unconstitutional—supposedly giving the agency no legal ability to review or continue the program—the court found differently. The Ninth Circuit determined that it had the authority to review and reject the administration’s conclusions as to whether DACA was legal. 

Noting that many previous presidents (including Eisenhower, Reagan, and H.W. Bush) had provided discretionary immigration benefits to large groups, the Ninth Circuit declared that DACA “was a permissible exercise of executive discretion.” Since the administration had offered essentially no other reason for ending DACA beyond its claim that DACA was illegal, the Ninth Circuit held that the government had improperly ended DACA. 

Importantly, the Ninth Circuit was clear that the administration could have chosen to end DACA as a matter of discretion at any time—but had chosen not to, instead relying on the legal conclusion that it simply had no authority to continue the initiative. It is possible that the administration chose not to use its discretion to end DACA because in doing so it would have been forced to admit it was legal. 

Although judges ruled 3-0 against the government, at least one judge on the Ninth Circuit would have gone even further. In a concurring opinion, Judge Owens declared that the plaintiffs should have been granted an injunction due to the administration’s “unconstitutional racial animus” against DACA holders. Most DACA beneficiaries are Latino, people who have borne the brunt of the president’s attacks on immigrants. 

Now that the Ninth Circuit has ruled, the case is directly on path to the Supreme Court. Until the Supreme Court issues a decision, individuals who have DACA can continue to apply for DACA renewals and the government will continue to process them. If the Supreme Court accepts the case, it is likely that a decision would come at the end of the term in June. Until then, the initiative remains in place.

Última Actualización: Noviembre 19 de 2018
Fuente: www.immigrationimpact.com 

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