United States Strengthens Guidance For Spousal Petitions Involving Minors

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced additional guidance regarding the adjudication of spousal petitions involving minors, following up on the agency’s February update to its policy.

The guidance, published as an update to the USCIS Adjudicator’s Field Manual (AFM), instructs officers to conduct an additional interview for certain I-130 spousal petitions involving a minor. Generally, the bona fides of the spousal relationship are assessed in person by USCIS when the alien spouse applies to adjust status, or by the Department of State when the alien spouse applies for an immigrant visa. However, I-130 spousal petitions involving a minor party warrant special consideration due to the vulnerabilities associated with marriage involving a minor. As such, USCIS is modifying its policy to require in-person interviews at this earlier stage for certain I-130 petitions involving minor spouses. 

“As part of our continued efforts to strengthen guidance for spousal petitions involving minors, we have instructed USCIS officers to conduct an additional in-person interview earlier in the immigration process for certain petitions that warrant additional scrutiny,” said USCIS Director L. Francis Cissna. “While USCIS has taken action to the maximum extent possible to detect and closely examine spousal petitions involving a minor spouse, Congress should address this issue by providing more clarity under the law for USCIS officers.” 

Interviewing earlier at the I-130 petition stage provides USCIS with an additional opportunity to verify information contained in the petition and assess the bona fides of the claimed spousal relationship. USCIS officers will now conduct interviews for the following I-130 spousal petitions as part of the adjudication of any I-130 spousal petition where: 

• The petitioner or the beneficiary is less than 16 years old;
• The petitioner or the beneficiary is 16 or 17 years old and there are 10 years or more difference between the ages of the spouses.

While there are no statutory age requirements to petition for a spouse or be sponsored as a spousal beneficiary, USCIS published guidance earlier this year detailing factors that officers should consider when evaluating I-130 spousal petitions involving a minor. USCIS considers whether the age of the beneficiary or petitioner at the time the marriage was celebrated violates the law of the place of celebration. Officers also consider whether the marriage is recognized as valid in the U.S. state where the couple currently resides or will presumably reside and does not violate the state’s public policy. In some U.S. states and in some foreign countries, marriage involving a minor might be permitted under certain circumstances, including where there is parental consent, a judicial order, emancipation of the minor, or pregnancy of the minor. 

In addition, per regulation, USCIS may use its discretion to issue a request for evidence (RFE) where appropriate. As with any benefit, the burden is generally on the petitioner to demonstrate the validity of their petition and the bona fides of their spousal relationship. 

These AFM updates are part of USCIS’ continuing efforts to ensure that our policies and processes remain current and are compliant with existing immigration law. USCIS also created a flagging system that sends an alert in an electronic system at the time of filing if a minor spouse or fiancé is detected. After the initial flag, the petition is sent to a special unit that verifies that the age and relationship listed are correct before the petition is accepted. If the age or classification on the petition is incorrect, the petition will be returned to the petitioner for correction. 

 

Fuente: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services 
https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4111-Strengthens-for-Spousal-Petitions-Involving-Minors.html

How The El Paso Immigration Court Fails To Uphold Due Process

Everyone deserves a fair and transparent court process. But that is simply not the case in an El Paso Immigration Court in Texas. At this court, thousands of detained immigrants face obstacles to a fair day in court each year.

Alarmingly, judges in this court granted about 3 percent of all asylum applications in FY 2016 and 2017. This is the lowest rate in the country. 

After weeks of investigation, we filed a complaint with the Department of Justice demanding immediate oversight and action. 

This complaint highlights systemic due process violations that are undermining justice for detained immigrants called before judges at the El Paso Service Processing Center (SPC) Immigration Court. The complaint draws from court observations of hundreds of immigration hearings, several sworn statements from legal practitioners appearing before the El Paso SPC Immigration Court, standing orders used by the Immigration Judges, and more. Read the evidence here. 

The complaint details egregious immigration judge conduct and court rules, such as: 

• Judges making hostile comments including, “due process is an opportunity, not a privilege” and “you know your client is going bye-bye, right?”
• Migrants being deprived of accurate interpretation at hearings.
• Judges limiting the amount of evidence asylum seekers are allowed to present to defend themselves from deportation to dangerous conditions.

The American Immigration Council and the American Immigration Lawyers Association filed a complaint with the Department of Justice, Executive Office of Immigration Review, Office of the Inspector General, and the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility. 

These serious due process concerns must be investigated so that all immigrants detained in El Paso can have a fair day in court. 

Source: www. americanimmigrationcouncil.org

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4100-El-Paso-Immigration-Court-Fails-to-Uphold-Due-Process.html

5 Ways to Prevent the Next Migrant Caravan

 

Written by Royce Murray
Just two weeks ahead of the midterm elections, much attention is being placed on a migrant caravan of Central Americans making their way north through Mexico. Now reported to include more than 7,000 people, the mostly Honduran group is seeking protection from pervasive violence at home. Even though the southern border is more secure than ever and the United States has well-established processes for handling asylum applicants, there are concrete ways to help prevent future caravans from migrating en masse. 


1. Address Root Causes of Central America’s Instability

We first need to take an honest look at why migrants from the Northern Triangle of Central America flee. People must have profound and imminent reasons to pick up their lives and leave their homes to journey to a faraway country. For many Hondurans, leaving was not a choice; their safety was at risk and their lives and the lives of their children were on the line. Rather than threatening to cut off the foreign assistance that helps stabilize these countries, the United States has a national interest in addressing root causes of violence and instability in the region so people are able to thrive at home. 


2. Improve Oversight and Accountability of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) 

Migrants travel together because there is safety in numbers. The journey is a perilous one, fraught with threats from opportunistic gangs and smugglers as well as the harsh conditions of the trek. When migrants travel alone, they place themselves at greater risk of harm and the chance that they will be mistreated—either physically or procedurally—at the U.S. border. CBP officials have a well-documented history of turning back asylum seekers at ports of entry and subjecting them to harsh treatment while in custody. Improving oversight and accountability for CBP will help ensure that our border processing remains safe and orderly. 


3. Help Mexico Improve Their Asylum System

Central American asylum seekers need more viable options for protection in the region. The United States has a vested interest in further strengthening the Mexican asylum system so that it can better accommodate larger numbers of asylum applications and afford meaningful protection to those at risk. Collaborating with our southern neighbor, rather than threatening them, is far more likely to achieve a successful and viable partnership to address this regional migration issue. 


4. Increase Refugee Admissions

If we don’t want large groups of people to take dangerous journeys in order to seek protection, we must expand U.S. refugee processing for the Central American region. Rather than slashing refugee allocations to record-low numbers, we should increase avenues to apply for protection from abroad. In fiscal year 2018, only 955 refugees were admitted from all of Latin America and the Caribbean and minimal refugee processing is expected to be conducted in the coming year. 


5. Resume In-Country Refugee Processing for Central American Children

Finally, children are at particular risk of violence in places like Honduras where gangs target teens for recruitment or threaten parents with harm to their children if they don’t agree to extortion demands. We should resume in-country processing for unaccompanied children (the “Central American Minors” or “CAM” program) in Central America and ensure that the program can adjudicate applications expeditiously, so children have the option of seeking safety within their home country. 

There is no evidence that this caravan of migrants poses any threat to the safety and well-being of the United States. We can, however, avoid large movements like this if we supplement existing avenues to apply for asylum by providing safe and orderly alternatives to those in need of protection. 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 

http://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a3932-how-to-prevent-the-next-caravan-of-migrants.html

New Court Filing Highlights the Government’s Official “Turnback Policy” for Asylum Seekers

Written by Karolina Walters

Eight new asylum seekers joined a lawsuit last week that challenges U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials’ widespread and well-documented practice of turning back asylum seekers at U.S. ports of entry (POE) along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The plaintiffs also amended the complaint in the lawsuit with new facts documenting an official “Turnback Policy” that formalizes CBP’s unlawful practice. Each new plaintiff has been subjected to the Turnback Policy, fears for his or her safety in Mexico, and wishes to seek asylum in the United States. 

As explained in the new filing, under the Turnback Policy, CBP officials assert an unverified “lack of capacity” and then utilize a variety of methods to prevent and delay asylum seekers from reaching ports of entry and making their asylum claims. These methods include coordinating with Mexican immigration authorities or other third parties to implement a “metering” or waitlist system; instructing asylum seekers to wait on the bridge, in the pre-inspection area, or at a shelter in Mexico until there is adequate space at the port of entry; or simply telling asylum seekers that they cannot be processed because the port of entry is “full” or “at capacity.” 

Plaintiffs reference internal CBP documents showing that the Turnback Policy existed as early as May 2016. However, high-level officials in the Trump administration confirmed the existence of the policy, and escalated it, in the spring of 2018 in reaction to news that a large group of asylum seekers, referred to as a “caravan,” sought to present themselves at the San Ysidro point of entry in California. 

Notably, the filing cites DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s May 2018 statement confirming that the government was “metering” asylum seekers and referring to the asylum process as a “loophole” that must be fixed. Recently, a report by DHS’ Office of the Inspector General also confirmed the use of “metering.” 

Plaintiffs’ allege that CBP officials reinforce the sanctioned Turnback Policy with the widespread practices documented in the original complaint, including misrepresentations about the U.S. asylum process, threats, abuse and physical force, coercion, outright denials of access, and physically obstructing access to POEs. Together, the resulting restriction of access to the asylum process, through outright denials and unreasonable delays, puts asylum seekers at imminent risk of grave harm or deportation. Such denial of access to the U.S. asylum process violates both U.S. and international law. 

The lawsuit is filed as a class action, meaning that the individual plaintiffs seek to represent other, unnamed asylum seekers who seek or will seek to claim asylum at a point of entry and are similarly denied access. Thus, this lawsuit may have lasting impact on how our government will treat those seeking protection at our borders. 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 

http://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a3928-Turnback-Policy-for-Asylum-Seekers-in-United-States.html

Pentagon May Deport Immigrants Who Have Served in the Military

Written by Melissa Cruz 

The Pentagon is considering halting a program that allows immigrants with urgently needed skills to serve in the military, putting the thousands of soldiers promised expedited citizenship in exchange for their service at risk for deportation.

According to an undated Defense Department memo, the Pentagon may terminate the Military Accessions Vital to National Interest program (MAVNI), an initiative that has allowed noncitizens with specialized linguistic and medical skills to enlist in the military and receive fast-tracked citizenship. Since the program’s launch in 2009, these immigrant troops have filled in the gaps for jobs deemed critical to the military’s operation, but are in short supply in American-born troops. 

The memo, however, cites the “potential threat” posed by these immigrant troops, referencing their “higher risk of connections to Foreign Intelligence Services.” Officials have now assigned threat level tiers to the 10,000 troops in the MAVNI program—the majority of whom serve in the Army—despite the rigorous vetting they endured to enter the military in the first place. 

Attorney and Retired Lieutenant Coronel Margaret Stock, the founder of the MAVNI program, told NPR that these security concerns were exaggerated: “If you were a bad guy who wanted to infiltrate the Army, you wouldn’t risk the many levels of vetting required in this program.” 

Other immigrants would not even be able to reach basic training—ending the MAVNI program would also cancel the contracts of recruits in the delay-entry program, a holding pool of recruits awaiting their assigned training date. 

As a result, 1,800 enlistment contracts for immigrant recruits would be cancelled, putting roughly 1,000 at risk for deportation. Those recruits’ visas expired while waiting for the military’s travel orders. An additional 2,400 part-time troops would also be removed from service. 

The Pentagon also plans to subject roughly 4,100 service members—most of whom are already naturalized citizens and have been deployed around the world—to “enhanced screening,” though the memo acknowledges the “significant legal constraints” of “continuous monitoring” of citizens without cause. 

Stock said the Pentagon’s proposal may violate the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. 

“They’re subjecting this whole entire group of people to this extreme vetting, and it’s not based on any individual suspicion of any of these people,” the former lieutenant colonel said. “They’ve passed all kinds of security checks already. That in itself is unconstitutional.” 

Though the program itself may have been an Obama-era initiative, immigrant troops have aided the U.S. military for centuries, dating all the way back to the Revolutionary War. To cut this essential program now—particularly as the Trump administration calls for a heightened military presence around the globe—may not only be unconstitutional, it is a disservice to centuries of American military tradition that has relied on the skills of foreign-born service members. 

Photo by MarineCorps NewYork

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 
http://inmigracionyvisas.com/a3666-Pentagon-Deport-Immigrants.html 

It’s Not up for Debate: Immigrants Invigorate the Economy

Written by Walter Ewing MARCH 30, 2017 in Immigration 

As any reputable economist will tell you, immigrants contribute to the U.S. economy in many ways. Yet the often subtle complexities of immigration economics are largely absent from a March 24 opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal authored by Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the anti-immigrant Center for Immigration Studies. 

To begin with, immigrants are responsible for most labor force growth in this country now that the Baby Boom generation is aging into retirement. And immigrants add value to the economy through the goods and services which they produce through their labor. Immigrants (and their families) also spend money in U.S. businesses, which creates jobs for the people who work in those businesses. In addition, they also pay taxes to federal, state, and local governments, funding essential services and sustaining the salaries of government employees. Moreover, the businesses that immigrants so often create sustain the jobs of even more workers. 

However, Krikorian negates the economic contributions of less-skilled, lower-paid immigrant workers. Specifically, he states that the notion of immigrants “doing jobs Americans won’t do” is false because, even in less-skilled occupations, at least half of all workers are native-born. 

He fails to address the economic value of immigrant workers in those occupations. It would be more accurate to say that immigrants do jobs for which too few native-born workers are available. In other words, immigrant workers supplement the native-born workforce, expanding the labor force in certain occupations to a level it would otherwise be unable to attain. 

Consider healthcare. Demand for workers is strong at both the high-skilled and less-skilled ends of the occupational spectrum. Immigrants comprise 25 percent of all medical doctors and 20 percent of home health aides in the United States. These shares are even higher in some rural parts of the country where native-born healthcare workers are particularly scarce. And demand is set to grow even higher as the native-born population ages and needs more and more medical care. Immigrants will inevitably play even more important roles in all sorts of healthcare occupations in the coming years. 

More than just supplementing the native-born workforce, immigrants also “complement” native-born workers. For one thing, they bring their own special skill sets derived from work they did in their home countries—skill sets which don’t simply duplicate the skills of natives, but add something new. In addition, new immigrants are likely to fill different kinds of jobs than natives because they are not yet proficient in English. This, in turn, leaves natives to fill those jobs that do require mastery of English. The point is, immigrants and natives don’t simply substitute for one another. But you wouldn’t know this from reading Krikorian’s analysis, since he often conflates the two. 

Krikorian also mischaracterizes the forces that drive migration. His analysis suggests that half the world is poised to migrate to the United States and would do so if U.S. immigration limits were lifted, flooding the country with mostly less-skilled immigrants who would steal American jobs, drive down wages, and bankrupt the welfare state. What this demographic doomsday scenario overlooks is the crucial role played by labor demand in drawing immigrants to the United States. When the economy is booming, more immigrants come. When the economy slips into recession, fewer come. People tend not to migrate solely because they are dissatisfied with their home countries, but because the economic prospects of another are reasonably good. 

Perhaps Krikorian’s selective economics is a product of the ideological lens through which he views immigrants. Krikorian ultimately veers into xenophobic terrain when he states that we need more stringent limits on immigration to slow the growth of groups that do not sufficiently “assimilate” into American society —like those immigrants and children of immigrants who identify with “pan-racial” terms such as “Hispanic” or “Asian.” But who gets to define what it means to be “American”? Krikorian does not address that thorny issue. 

At the end of his piece, Krikorian reveals what is perhaps his biggest fear when it comes to immigration: a fear of “ethnic diversity” that might “overload” U.S. society. However, the United States has survived for centuries with very high levels of diversity. It has also survived periodic revivals of nativism in which some native-born Americans reject anyone who looks or sounds different than they do. 

Source: http://immigrationimpact.com 
http://inmigracionyvisas.com/a3578-Immigrants-reinvigorate-economy.html