On August 17, 2018, Judge John D. Bates of the US District Court for the District of Columbia issued an order granting the government’s motion for a stay pending appeal of the court’s order requiring the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to begin accepting applications for initial grants of DACA benefits and for advance parole
On Tuesday, June 19, 2018, President Donald Trump told House Republicans to send him a compromise immigration bill to address border security and other key issues. Within less than 24 hours, in a move designed to stave off the continued public outcry over the separation of children from migrant parents detained at the southern border, on June 20 the president signed an executive order, “Affording Congress an Opportunity to Address Family Separation.” The executive order states that officials will continue to prosecute everyone who crosses the border illegally but will find or build facilities to hold families together while the parents’ cases are considered by the courts.
Zero Tolerance Policy Reiterated
The president indicated the border will be “just as tough,” with borders “very strong,” but families will no longer be separated. In a news conference where he was flanked by Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, President Trump indicated, “We are keeping a very powerful border and it continues to be a zero tolerance.” The executive order similarly reiterates the administration’s hard-line policy to detain any adults entering the country illegally, a policy that, according to statistics released on June 19, has led to the separation of more than 2,300 children from their parents. As stated in the order:
On May 10, 2018, USCIS issued a Policy Memorandum entitled “Accrual of Unlawful Presence and f, J, and M Nonimmigrants,” providing new guidance to USCIS officers in the calculation of unlawful presence of students, vocational students, and exchange visitors who remain in the US beyond their authorized period of stay. The Memo is a departure
In a recent analysis of the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS)—the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) system used to monitor academic students (F-1), vocational students (M-1) and exchange visitors (J-1)—DHS determined that of the nearly 1.5 million students and exchange who were either expected to change status or depart the United States in FY 2016 there was an estimated overstay rate of 6.19% for F-1s, 11.60% for M-1s and 3.80 % for J-1s. These figures were included in a report to Congress along with overstay data for other nonimmigrant categories and a game plan for reducing these figures, the centerpiece of which is a new biometric exit verification capability to be implemented by US Customs & Border Protection (CBP).
Last week, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) took another step in the overall DHS effort to reduce the rate of overstays with a focus on the student and exchange visitor populations. By memorandum dated May 10, 2018, USCIS announced a change, effective August 9, 2018, in the way it will calculate periods of unlawful presence in the United States for students and exchange visitors who remain beyond completion of their academic/training program or otherwise violate the terms of their status. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a foreign national who remains six months or one year beyond his or her authorized period of stay faces a bar to reentry of three or ten years, respectively, following departure from the United States. The issue of calculating unlawful presence for students and exchange visitors arises because foreign students and exchange visitors have historically been admitted, not until a date certain, but for the duration of their academic or training programs, designated on the Form I-94 (arrival/departure record) as duration of status or “D/S.”
An article in Law360 outlines the key items addressed in the Trump administration’s spring 2018 regulatory agenda, which was made available to the public in early May 2018. Topics on the list include structural changes to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the office within the US Department of Justice that oversees US immigration
On Wednesday, April 25, 2018, the US Supreme Court will hear argument in Trump v. Hawaii. Mayer Brown’s Legal Update provides background on this challenge to the third in a series of travel bans issued by President Trump and summarizes the questions before the Court in this final oral argument of its current term.
On Tuesday, April 10, 2018, President Donald Trump announced that restrictions on travel would be lifted for citizens of Chad, one of eight countries included in the third version of the administration’s controversial travel ban. In doing so, the president cited improvement in Chad’s identity-management and information sharing practices. Originally announced on September 24, 2017 in the “Presidential Proclamation Enhancing Vetting Capabilities and Processes for Detecting Attempted Entry Into the United States by Terrorists or Other Public-Safety Threats,” Travel Ban 3.0 imposed restrictions on travel for nationals of Chad and seven other countries: Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen. Mayer Brown’s Legal Advisory in September 2017 addresses the precise restrictions on each of the countries.
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The Washington Post reported that US Citizenship & Immigration Services, the federal agency that adjudicates petitions and applications for immigration and naturalization benefits, is creating an internal division to police caseworkers who “may be too forgiving toward applicants for permanent legal residence or citizenship . . .” See Washington Post, US Immigration agency to more closely monitor caseworkers, documents show, March 16, 2018. Agency officials confirmed plans for an internal oversight office, but denied that the office would be focused on monitoring caseworkers perceived as too lenient. See, e.g., The Hill, Federal immigration agency denies that it’s creating a new division to police caseworkers, March 17, 2018. An agency spokesperson indicated that a final decision had not been made and all mission or structural considerations are “pre-decisional until they are formally announced.”
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The March 5, 2018 date the president set in September 2017 for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) program to sunset came and went, with no clear deadline established for when Congress will act. The White House, state attorneys general, and immigrant advocacy groups urged prompt action, with demonstrations around the country advocating for legislative relief to provide a path to citizenship for “DREAMers,” the name informally used to refer to the estimated 800,000 beneficiaries of DACA. For now, the DACA program remains active, based on a California federal court’s continuing preliminary injunction.
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The first senior leadership conference of the nation’s immigration services agency, US Citizenship & Immigration Services, resulted in the agency stripping the phrase “nation of immigrants” from its mission statement. USCIS Director L. Francis Cissna stated that the agency’s mission is more “simple and straightforward,” and emphasized that immigrants are not “customers” of USCIS, in the news release announcing the change. As of February 22, 2018, the new mission statement reads:
“U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services administers the nation’s lawful immigration system, safeguarding its integrity and promise by efficiently and fairly adjudicating requests for immigration benefits while protecting Americans, securing the homeland, and honoring our values.”
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