Mayer Brown’s Andrew Pincus contributed to Forbes’ recent article, “Immigration Research: DACA Recipients Do Not Harm U.S.-Born Workers.” In the piece, Andrew explores the repercussions of ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). He states that more than 600,000 people could lose the ability to participate in society and also face the
Nearly half of the executive orders signed by President Biden on his first day in office reverse the immigration policies of the Trump administration. The Biden administration’s actions included reversing the ban on visa issuance and travel from Muslim-majority countries, placing an immediate pause on funding construction of a wall along the country’s southern border, and requiring testing negative for COVID-19 to enter the United States. The new administration’s swift action underscores the priority placed on immigration policy, as forecasted here. We outline each executive order signed, with plans to further address the executive actions most critical to employers and businesses.
Continue Reading President Biden’s First Executive Orders Focus on Reversing Trump Administration Policies
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:
The Texas Attorney General, joined by six other states, filed suit against the federal government yesterday to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program on the basis that DACA derives from an executive overreach by President Obama in 2012. The suit was filed in the Fifth Circuit in Brownsville, Texas, where a November 2015 decision overruled President Obama’s plans to protect more than 4 million individuals from deportation.
The lawsuit further complicates the fate of DACA recipients, also known as Dreamers, as other district court rulings remain active. Most recently, a Washington, DC district judge ordered that DACA renewal applications should continue, and that new applicants may be eligible to apply if the federal government fails to justify within 90 days why DACA should cease altogether.Continue Reading Texas and Six States Sue to Abolish DACA
On April 24, 2018, Judge John D. Bates of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia ruled against the Trump Administration’s “unlawful” rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) program. Arguing that the decision to end DACA was “arbitrary and capricious because the department failed adequately to explain its conclusion that
Mayer Brown Litigation and Dispute Resolution partner Andrew Pincus (Washington, DC) was quoted in Corporate Counsel regarding the friend of the court brief that he and Mayer Brown attorneys Lauren Goldman and Karen Lim filed on behalf of 102 companies, including Amazon.com, eBay Inc., Facebook Inc., Google Inc., IBM Corp., Intel Corp., Levis Strauss &
DACA CONTINUES AT LEAST TEMPORARILY
On Monday, February 26, 2018, the US Supreme Court declined to consider the government’s request to review a preliminary injunction issued last month by a federal court in California. On January 9, 2018, Judge William Alsup of the US District Court for the Northern District of California issued a preliminary injunction temporarily reinstating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Judge Alsup’s temporary order in Regents of the University of California, et al. v. Department of Homeland Security, et al. requires US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to accept DACA renewal applications. On January 13, 2018, USCIS announced its process for accepting renewal applications. In a petition filed by the Justice Department on January 18, 2018, the government asked the Supreme Court to take the unusual step of bypassing the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and reviewing Judge Alsup’s injunction directly. The Supreme Court declined, thus leaving the lower court’s order in place.
Continue Reading Supreme Court Declines to Wade into DACA Mess
For weeks Congress has funded the government through short-term continuing resolutions even though significant progress was being made on a two-year budget agreement that would increase the budget caps for both defense and non-defense spending and provide new infrastructure funding. The decision to proceed with short-term continuing resolutions was a function of Democrats in the House and Senate as well as some Republicans making a final resolution of the larger budget deal contingent on an agreement to resolve the DACA question. It now appears that, at least among Senate Democrats, the precondition that DACA be resolved prior to finalizing the budget deal is slipping. Senate Democrats and Republicans are close to finalizing the two-year budget deal and hope to move that deal through the Senate quickly.
Continue Reading As Deadline Nears, Congress Poised to Decouple Budget Negotiations from Immigration Debate