Immigration Politics Georgia

looking for a better life • news and pro-enforcement opinion

Search Results for: court

AJC headline tells readers door to higher education closed to immigrants in Georgia! – actual policy says not so

By

 

Photo: Twitter

 

 

Oh, my! The Feb 4, 2021 headline in the liberal AJC’s “Get Schooled” blog “OPINION: Open door to higher education for immigrants” tells us the door to higher education is closed to immigrants! Can you imagine how horrible the state of Georgia must be?

But wait, the sub-headline is “Bill introduced by Republican legislator would restore in-state tuition for young immigrants.”

Ah, so maybe it’s not that immigrants cannot get a college education in the Peach State after all. Maybe the AJC’s problem with Georgia is that young immigrants must pay out-of-state tuition – at public universities?

Nope, that isn’t true either.

Actually the state’s taxpayer funded University System of Georgia is ruled by the autonomous Board of Regents and that body has a policy offering instate tuition rates to immigrants. But – and here is the real problem the AJC and the people who wrote the opinion column have with Georgia – the benefit is for legal immigrants. And refugees. And asyleees. Pretty mean, eh?

Legal immigrants, also known as Lawful Permanent Residents have what are widely referred to as ‘green cards.” The Regents policy does not allow illegal aliens to access instate tuition.

It’s right there in the Board of Regents Policy Manual

4.3 Student Residency.

4.3.1 Out-of-State Enrollment & 4.3.2 Classification of Students for Tuition Purposes

4.3.2.3 Non-Citizens

“A non-citizen student shall not be classified as in-state for tuition purposes unless the student is legally in this state and there is evidence to warrant consideration of in-state classification as determined by the Board of Regents. Lawful permanent residents, refugees, asylees, or other eligible noncitizens as defined by federal Title IV regulations may be extended the same consideration as citizens of the United States in determining whether they qualify for in-state classification.

International students who reside in the United States under non-immigrant status conditioned at least in part upon intent not to abandon a foreign domicile shall not be eligible for in-state classification.”

The liberal AJC headline is over an opinion column from two advocates, Sofia Bork and Munir Meghjani. They seem very confused about the regents policy.

“Unfortunately, Georgia’s growing immigrant community has been locked out of the system that could propel them to reach their full potential, benefiting both their community and our state’s workforce. We have seen scores of family and friends struggle to make ends meet to afford the same education we received” they tell us.

If you have already guessed that the column is really about promoting state legislation to give illegal aliens instate tuition, you are on the right track.

The bill being sold is House Bill 120 from Republican Rep Kasey Carpenter of Dalton. Carpenter – and his mostly Democrat co-sponsors – want to provide illegal aliens with the much lower instate tuition rate than the regents allow U.S. citizens and legal immigrants from most other states to pay.

In liberal parlance, it’s fairness to “immigrants.”

Rep Carpenter says his bill is all about illegal aliens with DACA status. It’s not. DACA is not mentioned anywhere in the bill. But that isn’t part of the advocate’s column in the AJC. Rep Carpenter says illegal aliens with DACA are somehow ‘lawfully present’ in the United States. The 11th Circuit Appellate Court says DACA does not provide lawful presence. We wrote it up here.

None of that is in the opinion column in the liberal AJC.  It’s worth a read if you aren’t already convinced the editors at the AJC are driven by an open borders agenda and they are quite willing to smear real immigrants to push that cause.

AJC Get Schooled editor Maureen Downey. Photo: Twitter.

The AJC “Get Schooled” blog is run by AJC editor Maureen Downey who we suspect wrote the headline.

##

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GOP Rep Kasey Carpenter blasts his county party for opposing his instate tuition for illegal aliens bill – video

By

Rep Kasey Carpenter (R-Dalton) blasts his home county Republican party at the Georgia Capitol. Photo: Screenshot, Georgia House/FYN

“A 2019 11th Circuit Appellate Court decision ruled that DACA does not provide lawful status and denied a group of DACA recipient’s lawsuit demand for admission to the three public-funded public Georgia universities that do not allow illegal aliens to attend at any tuition rate.”

Rep. Kasey Carpenter revolts against local GOP to defend his in-state tuition bill for DACA recipientFebruary 2, 2021

by

FetchYourNews.com

Dalton’s Republican state Rep. Kasey Carpenter (R-Dalton) denounced his home GOP on the House floor in defense of his legislation (HB 120) to grant illegal aliens in-state tuition rates. The bill would allow undocumented international students living in Georgia to pay less tuition than Americans and legal immigrants from most other states in Georgia’s public universities and the technical college system.

“As far as DACA recipients receiving in-state tuition rates, These individuals are here thru no fault of their own. They are or will be taxpayers in the state of Georgia. I am interested in creating more givers than takers to our economy. Affordable College education is a step in that direction. The state pays the same rate whether that student pays in-state or out-of-state tuition. It is the university or college that takes the hit. Many take that hit on students from surrounding states. The federal government has failed America in regard to immigration. Unfortunately, we have to come up with the best solutions with the situation we have been handed. Making lemonade out of lemons,” Carpenter told FYN.

For the academic year 2019-2020, the average tuition & fees for Colleges in Georgia is $4,721 for in-state and $16,879 for out-of-state, according to collegetuitioncompare.com.

Last week Rep Carpenter made a short speech to the Georgia House blasting his bill’s opponents, lamenting the period in history when the U.S. had “a show-up” immigration policy, verbally merged ‘immigrants’ with illegals – and with an audible groan from an off-camera House member, cited the biblical story of Joseph and his family in ancient Egypt to defend his tuition legislation.

The now growing controversy began when the Whitfield Republican Party sent out an email opposing the legislation shortly after its introduction. The email read, “Carpenter is renewing his attempts to make Georgia a magnet for a new wave of illegal.” Rep Carpenter responded with a Facebook post saying his tuition bill was crafted for DACA recipients and would “only apply to individuals considered lawfully present in Georgia as of 2013, aka DACA.”

Carpenter had the following to say about Whitfield GOP, “My problem with our local GOP is they sent out miss information about this bill without even calling beforehand. Sometimes local parties have individuals involved with their own agenda. It doesn’t speak to the entire party but A select few.”

A 2019 11th Circuit Appellate Court decision ruled that DACA does not provide lawful status and denied a group of DACA recipient’s lawsuit demand for admission to the three public-funded public Georgia universities that do not allow illegal aliens to attend at any tuition rate.

DACA is a 2012 executive amnesty program put in place by then-President Barack Obama that grants deferred action on deportation along with a work permit and Social Security Number to illegal aliens. Georgia issues driver’s licenses and official state ID Cards to DACA recipients as well as other “public benefits.”… There is more here from FYN.com

 

Pending legislation under Georgia’s Gold Dome to allow illegal aliens to pay lower tuition at public universities than legal immigrants and U.S. citizens #HB120 #KaseyCarpenter

By

 

Image: A.F. Branco – In 2016 three Georgia residents, all illegal aliens who had graduated from Georgia high schools, went to court with the contention that their deferred action on deportation status as DACA recipients somehow provided “lawful presence” in the U.S. Further, they said DACA should allow them to attend the universities the Board of Regents has placed off limits to illegal aliens.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against them in 2019. On page 26 of the March 2019 11th Circuit opinion the court wrote: “As explained above, appellants are not lawfully present in the United States.”
The court noted the obvious (even the liberal AJC reported it): illegal alien students are still subject to deportation proceedings. “As DACA recipients, they simply were given  a reprieve from potential removal; that does not mean they are in any way ‘lawfully present under the (INA) act.”

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Updated: Typos corrected 5:32 PM 28 January, 2021.  **Updated 9:15 AM 29 January, 2021 with note on lack of criminal restrictions for eligibility.

UPDATE FEB 19, 8:47 PM – THERE IS NOW A SUBSTITUTE BILL (LC 49 0393S) WITH A SLIGHT CHANGE IN LANGUAGE DESIGNED TO CREATE FAKE NEWS. IT IS WORKING. MORE SUNDAY.

Instate tuition for illegal aliens in Georgia – House Bill 120 sponsored by Republican Rep Kasey Carpenter of Dalton

 Carpenter has three Republican co-signers and five Democrat co-signers. Without ever using “DACA,” the hoped-for contention is that DACA provides “lawful presence.” It doesn’t.

See bottom for a list and contact info of cosponsors.

Rep Kasey Carpenter’s legislation, HB 120, would change Georgia law to allow illegal aliens to access instate tuition rates in Georgia’s public university and technical college systems. Three schools would be exempt because they do not admit illegal aliens at any tuition rate.

Rep Kasey Carpenter Photo: GA General Assembly

These instate rates are much lower than out-of state tuition (what non-residents pay). For academic year 2019-2020, the average tuition & fees for Colleges in Georgia is $4,721 for in-state and $16,879 for out-of-state.

This would mean illegal aliens would pay a lower rate than Americans and legal immigrants from Michigan or Nebraska (for example).

The bill is being promoted in the liberal AJC in a way that makes it sound like it would only apply to illegal aliens with Obama’s illegal DACA action. Here is a quote from an AJC article before the bill officially dropped:

“ (Rep Kasey) Carpenter said his bill would apply to participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.”

The reality is that “DACA” is not mentioned anywhere in Carpenter’s state tuition amnesty bill. Carpenter, along with his far-left, Atlanta-area Democrat co-sponsors has structured the measure so that nearly any ‘youngish’ illegal alien living in Georgia, DACA or not, can pay much less tuition in Georgia taxpayer-funded post-secondary schools than Americans and legal immigrants from most other states *if they meet the bill’s guidelines. *(updated 3:19 PM, January 28, 2021)

Note: Read a well written explanation of what may happen to DACA in the near future from Regulatory Review.

______________________

Requirements for instate tuition for illegal aliens in Carpenter’s bill:

* Student must have graduated from a Georgia High School or obtained a Georgia GED.

* Claim domicile in Georgia since January 1, 2013 or be a dependent “child” of a parent (including illegal alien parents) who claims Georgia domicile since January 1, 2013.

*  Be younger than 30 at time of initial application to a Georgia post-secondary school. This appears to mean the illegal alien who is older than 30 now could have applied in the past and been rejected but can use the date of that original application. (We have not done the math).

* Has not been issued a temporary (non-immigrant) visa to enter the U.S.A. by the federal government.

*The bill says student must be “lawfully present in this state” and present evidence of that status – and that the regents may not allow instate tuition to non-citizens who are not “lawfully present.”

All italics mine.

**UPDATE: January 29, 2021 – DACA has guidelines for eligibility regarding criminal records and convictions. In HB 120 we see no such limiting language. This bill is a separate, state level illegal alien tuition amnesty that should be rejected out of hand by responsible lawmakers.

_______________________

The term “lawful presence” (different from “legal status”) seems to be the rock Carpenter, his Democrat co-sponsors and his foreign labor backers are tying themselves to. Congress, and only congress, makes the determination of immigration status. According to a 2019 appellate court decision discussed further down, “lawful presence” is not defined anywhere in the Immigration and Nationality Act that regulates immigration. Illegal aliens with DACA for example, do not have “lawful presence.”

Carpenter says he is trying to educate more workers. In a pandemic. With high unemployment. A move that will lower wages for Americans if successful.

Carpenter and his Democrat co-sponsors seem to be trying hard to allow the state of Georgia to create its own amnesty for tuition rates. By using the “DACA” label in talking points, but leaving it out of the bill language, they could allow perhaps thousands more illegal aliens to obtain this immigration amnesty for special treatment on tuition than the 21,000 or so illegal aliens that actually currently have DACA status.

We expect the argument to be that illegal aliens with a Georgia drivers license can use it to demonstrate “lawful presence” in Georgia to pay less tuition than legal immigrants.

See bill here

Image: The Dustin Inman Society

FACTS:

 Associated Press: “Some illegal immigrants get licenses in Georgia.”

llegal aliens with deferred action on deportation (DACA or no DACA) can and do qualify for a Georgia drivers license because of federal law (REAL ID Act) – this special treatment applies to obtaining drivers licenses and official ID cards only.

The Georgia state senate passed a bill to end this insanity in 2017. All but one Republican voted in favor. The liberal AJC reported on it with “Georgia Senate passes measure aimed at immigrants without legal status.”

The House never allowed the bill to see a hearing and the bill died. We are forever grateful to former state Senator Josh McKoon for his courage and determination.

Drivers license issued to non-citizens in Georgia, including illegal aliens with deferred action on deportation. Photo: DDS.

Carpenter and his Dem pals may be trying to use the drivers license as a way to get illegal aliens instate tuition. The effort seems to be to use the DACA amnesty as a way to confuse lawmakers and voters on Carpenter’s tuition amnesty bill, it should be noted that illegal aliens with DACA have already lost their case in federal court – twice – when they tried to claim “lawful presence.”

“Illegal aliens who have been awarded deferred action on deportation proceedings through the DACA amnesty by both the Obama and Trump administrations are illegal aliens and do not have “lawful presence” says the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The decision was handed down March 6, 2019.

The ruling was in response to a suit brought by several illegal aliens in Georgia who were challenging the Board of Regents policy that requires lawful presence for instate tuition purposes and admittance to some USG universities.

The Eleventh Circuit rejected all of the students’ claims. The court noted that  ““lawfully present” is not a stand alone immigration classification, and it is not defined anywhere in the (Immigration and Nationality) Act  *(opinion here).

We wrote it up here, with a link to the court’s opinion.

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr. Photo: Twitter.com

Georgia Attorney General, Chris Carr:

“We have continuously and clearly taken the position in ongoing legal cases that DACA does not confer legal status…” from the liberal WABE news.

The bill seems to depend largely on lawmaker’s ignorance of the issue and the slanted promotional and inaccurate headline coverage in the media.

________

HB120

Sponsor: Rep Kasey Carpenter (R) Dalton

*Cosponsors

Rep Dale Washburn (R) Macon

Rep Mathew Gambrill (R) Cartersville

Rep Bee Nguyen (D) Atlanta

Rep Zulma Lopez (D) Atlanta

Rep Wes Cantrell (R) Woodstock

Rep Shea Roberts (D) Atlanta

Rep Angelika Kausche (D) Johns Creek

Rep Mathew Wilson (D) Brookhaven

*As per Clerk’s office 10:00 AM Jan 27, 2021

Image: Dustin Inman Society

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well written explanation: What Will Happen to DACA?

By

Regulatory Review

What Will Happen to DACA?

Despite notching several critical legal victories this year, including one at the U.S. Supreme Court, supporters of a federal program that protects Dreamers—immigrants brought to the United States as children—must put the celebrations on hold yet again.

In the latest chapter of a nearly decade-long legal battle, the fate of that program—called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)—now lies in the hands of a federal judge in Texas who immigration advocates fear will terminate the program.

DACA began in 2012 when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a memorandum making Dreamers eligible to obtain legal status that would defer potential immigration proceedings. This relief, which can be renewed every two years, shields Dreamers who meet stringent criteria from deportation and allows them to obtain work authorization among other benefits. Since its enactment, DACA has protected 800,000 noncitizens from deportation and more than 1.3 million other immigrants remain eligible for the program.

For years, DACA had enjoyed wide bipartisan support. But in 2017 the Trump Administration attempted to rescind the program, claiming that it was “an unconstitutional exercise of authority by the Executive Branch.” In response, multiple plaintiffs challenged the rescission as “arbitrary and capricious” in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. This summer, the Supreme Court agreed with the plaintiffs, upholding the program against the Trump Administration’s effort to disband it—a major victory for the program’s beneficiaries and immigration advocates.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision, a federal judge ordered DHS to restore the program to its original form after the agency refused to do so. The judge specifically required DHS to resume reviewing and approving new DACA applications and work permits immediately, marking another victory for the program’s supporters.

But ongoing litigation in Texas threatens DACA supporters’ winning streak.

This case began in 2018 when Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and several other states filed a lawsuit arguing that DHS exceeded its authority by creating DACA without the consent of Congress. Because this case is the only one that directly challenges DACA’s legality, an adverse decision in this litigation could permanently end the program—an outcome that became more likely when the case was transferred to Judge Andrew S. Hanen, according to some advocates.

Appointed by President George W. Bush, Judge Hanen is perhaps best known for his 2015 decision to enjoin two other Obama-era immigration initiatives closely related to DACA. The first initiative sought to expand DACA to include an additional 330,000 people. The second initiative aimed to offer DACA-like protections to undocumented parents of U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.

In that litigation, 26 states challenged the two initiatives in Southern Texas, knowing they were likely to come before Judge Hanen, whose earlier rebukes of President Obama’s immigration policies “made him an inviting decision-maker.” When the case was indeed assigned to Judge Hanen, one commentator concluded that the plaintiff states had “already won the first round in court.”

As predicted, Judge Hanen enjoined the two initiatives, holding that President Obama exceeded his authority when he enacted them. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit—perhaps the most conservative federal appeals court in the country—upheld Judge Hanen’s decision. On further appeal, the Supreme Court—with only eight justices after Justice Antonin Scalia’s untimely death—was evenly divided on the issue, which meant Judge Hanen’s initial injunction remained in place. Although the ruling had no effect on DACA itself, it effectively terminated the two related initiatives.

When the Texas attorney general and other plaintiff states mounted the 2018 challenge to DACA’s legality, they relied heavily on the reasoning Judge Hanen employed when he enjoined the two DACA-related programs. But, in a decision that surprised some observers, Judge Hanen declined to halt DACA at the outset of litigation. Although the judge believed the program was likely illegal, he explained, “the egg has been scrambled,” and thus it did not make sense to “put it back in the shell,” at least until he could consider the parties’ arguments in full.

In 2020, shortly after the Supreme Court rejected the Trump Administration’s rescission attempt, Judge Hanen directed the parties to bring their claims before him once more, suggesting he might be prepared to put the eggs back in the shell….read the rest here.

Georgia Gets in Ballot Trouble with Rule Changes – IAG

By

 

Photo: IAG

“Previously, the signature on the absentee ballot had to match the signature on eNet, a computer database that maintains Georgia’s voter registration and absentee ballot information. If the signature on the ballot didn’t match, it was thrown out.”

Insider Advantage Georgia

November 11, 2020

By Phil Kent

Criticism of poor management and decision-making by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger continues, coupled with GOP voter fraud lawsuits that have been filed or will be filed. The controversy and lawsuits are partially spurred by changes in state election laws. One change, agreed to by the Republican secretary of state last March, is especially stunning. And it leads to a big question: Why did he agree to a settlement that smuggled in a major change to mail-in voting?

John Daniel Davidson, writing in The Federalist, has researched and written about Raffensperger’s incredible cave-in involving a settlement in federal court with the Georgia Democratic Party, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee which had sued the state over for absentee voting rules.

The settlement introduced “ballot curing” to Georgia law. Ballot curing, as Davidson describes it, is when voters whose mail-in ballots are rejected for some reason— the signature on the ballot doesn’t match the one on file, the ballot is missing certain voter information, etc.— are notified and given a chance to correct or “cure” their absentee ballot. “Under the settlement, state election officials agreed to contact voters whose ballots were rejected within three business days. If an absentee ballot is rejected in the 11 days before Election Day, officials agreed to contact the voter in the next business day,” Davidson writes.

But here’s where it gets worse. Because more than 8,000 absentee ballots were rejected in Georgia’s 2018 general election, this provision in the settlement got the most media play. Yet the most important one is a crucial change to the rules for accepting absentee ballots in the first place. Consider Davidson’s findings:

“Previously, the signature on the absentee ballot had to match the signature on eNet, a computer database that maintains Georgia’s voter registration and absentee ballot information. If the signature on the ballot didn’t match, it was thrown out.

“In a cleverly worded section of the settlement, Georgia election officials agreed to a subtle but profound change…, we hope you read the rest here.

 

Daniel Greenfield: American Coup

By

Photo: Frontpagemag.com

Frontpagemag.com

Nov 9, 2020

Daniel Greenfield

This was not just voter fraud out of Philly. It’s a coup by the oligarchy

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

The plan was simple.

Saturate the media with polls showing a blue wave and an inevitable victory. Discourage people from voting in person. And then, after tabulating the paltry votes of those who defied the media to vote in person, dump all the tampered, altered, and harvested ballots for Biden in key cities.

Even before Election Day, the Democrats knew their plan was going awry. Suddenly, instead of urging their base to use mail-in ballots they were, just as loudly, telling them to vote in person.

Why? Too few Republicans were voting by mail and too many were going to vote in person.

If the Election Day numbers tilted too decisively to President Trump before suddenly going Biden’s way, the election would look rigged, and there would be an outcry from Republicans.

Despite last minute efforts urging Democrats to vote in person, that’s exactly what happened.

Once again, Democrats had overreached, committed a massive crime, and have been left with no choice except to ride the tiger. That’s what happened last time when the Obama administration allied with the Clinton campaign to eavesdrop on its political opponents. And then doubled down with investigations and indictments, not of the perpetrators, but the victims.

Despite the blatant irregularities in key battleground states, they’re doubling down again.

The American Coup is underway. In classic Leninist fashion, its initial goal is to control the propaganda and the process. The media has declared Biden to be the winner while mass celebratory gatherings cheer the new order. Big Tech censors any skepticism about the election.

And the same faction that declared four years ago that casting doubt on an election was patriotic and the best defense of democracy now claims exactly it’s treason.

The only Democrat rule is that it’s patriotic when they do it and treason when their opponents do. That’s not how ‘democrats think. It’s how dictators rule.

All of this is a sideshow. What really matters is the process, not the propaganda. The propaganda is meant to divert attention from how implausible the media’s numbers are.

Republican turnout rose, instead of falling, in in-person voting, and the GOP also went into Election Day with clear leads in mail-in ballots in key battleground states, including Wisconsin and Michigan. The tide of Biden ballots that arrived during the night resulted in implausible turnout figures. The photos, videos, and whistleblower accounts of poll and postal workers tampering with ballots didn’t take long to show up. And just as quickly to be censored.

The odd numbers mostly came out of urban areas run by notoriously corrupt political machines. And the race between those trying to steal and unsteal the election began with a power struggle. In Philly and Detroit, efforts were made to keep Republican observers out of view.

In Philly, it took a court order to even get the observers within sight of the ballots, while the city continued to fight the ruling. In Detroit, windows were covered up with cardboard, and Republican observers were locked out. Potentially tens of thousands of ballots were illegally transposed with no Republican observers. In Pennsylvania, Democrat operatives had been illegally given access to rejected mail-in ballots so that they could arrange for provisionals. And back in Detroit, workers were told to backdate ballots that had arrived after the election.

In Wisconsin, thousands of witness statements may have been illegally altered.

Meanwhile the glitches, errors, and irregularities began piling up.

In Antrim County, Michigan, a “glitch” turned over a county that President Trump had won to Joe Biden. The glitch was only noticed because the results didn’t match past trends. More than half of the state’s counties use the same software.

“Just last night in Oakland County, we found 2,000 ballots that had been given to Democrats, that were Republican ballots, due to a clerical error,” RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel announced at a press conference.

Oakland had been one of three counties that were crucial to the state being called for Biden.

And then there were the voting dead who went on voting and being registered after death. That allegedly included a woman who voted a week after she died.

The voting dead are not a new problem in Philly. If the dead didn’t vote, few elections would go on as usual. And yet the same media that spent four years falsely claiming that Russians had somehow rigged the previous election with a few thousand dollars in Facebook ads, have declared that accusing the incorruptible City of Brotherly Love of corruption is an outrage.

It’s no coincidence that the areas at the center of the vote fraud controversy, Philly, Detroit, and Atlanta, are also some of the most corrupt cities in the country with plenty of jailed officials. We hope you read the rest here on the Frontpagemag website and that you subscribe to their feed. It’s far undervalued at no-cost.

dak

 

FAST FACT: Almost 1.15 million aliens in the United States are seeking asylum — enough to make them the 43rd largest state

By

Image: USCIS

Astounding Asylum Numbers in DOS Refugee Report for FY 2021

Center for Immigration Studies

October 28, 2020

Art Arthur

The Department of State (DOS) — with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — transmitted their Report to Congress on Proposed Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2021 on September 30. My colleague Nayla Rush broke down that report, and the changes that the Biden-Harris ticket has proposed to the number of entries, in an October 6 post, but three statistics stick out therein: the number of aliens seeking asylum from DHS, the number seeking asylum as relief from removal from the immigration courts, and the credible fear grant rate in FY 2020.

Aliens who are present in the United States may seek what is called “affirmative asylum” from asylum officers (AOs) in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), an agency in DHS. AOs may grant or deny those aliens asylum.

If an AO opts not to grant the alien asylum, and the alien is removable (as most are), the AO can refer the alien to immigration court (part of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) within the Department of Justice (DOJ)), for the alien to renew that application as a defensive application (relief from removal) in removal proceedings.

In addition to adjudicating those affirmative asylum applications, AOs also consider “credible fear” claims for aliens in expedited removal proceedings under section 235(b)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Those AOs can find that the alien has credible fear (in which case the alien is referred to immigration court to file an asylum application before an immigration judge (IJ) in removal proceedings), or determine that the alien does not have credible fear (in which case the alien can ask an IJ to review the AO’s decision).

There were an average of 500 to 550 AOs at USCIS in recent years (USCIS is authorized for 745 AOs), but last year USCIS announced that it planned to hire 500 new employees in the asylum branch of the agency (half of whom would be AOs; the rest staff), and, as of October 2019, they were on track to meet that goal. In a February 2020 report, however, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) was critical of USCIS’s efforts to train those AOs to perform credible fear screenings.

The number of such credible fear referrals skyrocketed in FY 2019, as almost one million aliens entered the United States illegally along the Southwest border or sought entry without proper documents at the ports of entry along that border. As GAO noted: “The number of referrals for credible fear screenings in the first two quarters of fiscal year 2019 alone was larger than the total number of referrals in each of fiscal years 2014 and 2015.”

In fact, AOs completed 5,523 credible fear cases in FY 2009, but in FY 2019, it completed 102,204 (out of 105,439 cases received) — a more than 1,750 percent increase. To help out, DHS assigned refugee officers, former AOs, and (in a controversial move), Border Patrol agents to handle interviews. A federal judge blocked that last effort in August.

All of which brings me back to the DOS report. As of August 31, according to the department, there were 598,692 asylum claims (in addition to credible fear claims) pending with USCIS. Assuming that there were the authorized 745 AOs on that date (the actual number — a moving target — is hard to find), that means that each AO is assigned almost 804 cases to adjudicate — not counting new cases that will be added.

In my experience, AOs generally take two hours to conduct interviews and complete about two per day, but USCIS’s statistics show a much lower completion rate. In September 2019, according to USCIS, AOs conducted 2,799 interviews and completed 6,286 cases. Assuming that there were 500 AOs at the time (likely on the low side), that means they each held 5.6 interviews each that month and completed 12.6 cases per capita — much fewer than one a day.

On top of the AOs’ asylum workload, according to DOS, there were 549,724 asylum claims (as of June 30) pending with the nation’s 520 IJs (the latter as of October — 20 new IJs were on-boarded on October 9, meaning that the number in June was actually closer to 500).

Again, that means that each IJ is assigned 1,057 asylum cases. As a former IJ, I generally completed one to two asylum cases per day, and at best IJs can hear approximately four (assuming that the alien shows up and is ready to go at the merits hearing date, which does not always happen). Consequently, as the Transactional Records Action Clearinghouse (TRAC) reported, in 2019 asylum applicants in immigration court on average waited almost three years for their cases to be decided, time that they will spend in the United States — and a timeframe that does not count appeals.

And, again, the DOS report does not count any new asylum cases that have been filed in the interim in immigration court.

Combined, however, these statistics show that there were 1,148,416 pending asylum cases in the United States — at a minimum. If those applicants were a state, they would be the 43rd largest in the United States, ahead of Montana, Rhode Island, Delaware, the Dakotas, Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming.

Plus, as the foregoing shows, an asylum applicant denied by USCIS can renew his or her claim with the immigration court. In September 2019, for example, AOs approved 34 percent of the asylum claims they adjudicated (1,501), and referred (for one reason or another) 66 percent (2,901). Those cases — assuming that the aliens actually appear in immigration court — will end up on the IJs’ dockets.

This is a hole that the AOs and IJs will not be able to dig themselves out of without a massive increase in resources.

The Trump administration has, in fact, increased the total number of IJs by 70 percent and, as noted, has at least tried to increase the number of AOs by 50 percent. Joe Biden vows to double the number of IJs (as well as the number of EOIR staff and interpreters), but that hiring will take time and a significant increase in resources — resources Congress, which is stingy when it comes to immigration, may not fund. Much more here.

 

ICE Is To Fast-Track Deportations Across The Country

By

Image: Dustin Inman Society

The new policy will give agents the ability to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants without a hearing in front of a judge

BuzzFeedNews

October 7, 202

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have started to implement a policy that allows officers to arrest and rapidly deport undocumented immigrants who have been in the US for less than two years, according to internal emails and documents obtained by BuzzFeed News.

The Trump administration’s effort — to expand quick deportations to undocumented immigrants across the US who cannot prove they have been in the country continuously for two years before they are picked up — was blocked by a federal court judge soon after the policy was first announced in 2019. But in June, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit lifted the preliminary injunction, opening the door for ICE officers to use expedited removal across the country, a policy that will allow the agency to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants without a hearing in front of an immigration judge.

The previous policy only allowed officials to use expedited removal within 100 miles of the border and for those who have been in the country for up to two weeks.

Currently, officers typically arrest immigrants and place them into deportation proceedings. These include a hearing before an immigration judge — a process that can take years. In practical terms, the expanded policy gives ICE officers more power to determine who can be quickly deported, although it’s unclear exactly how fast the process will be.

The shift could allow the Trump administration to increase deportations while circumventing a court system that is severely backed up and short on resources, but advocates for immigrants have said it would destroy their due process rights…

More here.

 

Presidential election: Whatever Happened to Immigration?

By

Photo: Reuters

Column: The issue driving the populist revolt has disappeared in 2020

Washington Free Beacon

Mathew Contineti – October 9, 2020

It is a sign of the times that immigration has not been mentioned in three hours of debate between the presidential tickets. A review of the transcripts of both the presidential and vice-presidential encounters finds no questions asked nor answers proffered about an issue that until only recently defined much of our politics and distinguished our two parties. Needless to say, both moderators wanted to know where the candidates stand on climate change, which routinely drifts toward the bottom of any list of public priorities.

Why the omission? It is tempting to say that immigration did not come up because the elites who manage the presidential debates are uncomfortable with the topic, are worried that the issue favors Republican border hawks, and are more interested in subjects relevant to their cultural coterie. But it is also true that presidential debates tend to focus on current events and pressing challenges, and that immigration just does not seem as great a concern today as the coronavirus, the economy, race relations and civil unrest, and California brushfires.

The apparent irrelevance of immigration and border security to the election might also be attributed to the achievements of the Trump administration. But these achievements are partial, tenuous, and dependent on events and relationships and court decisions. And they are easily reversed. What should worry the president is that the somnolence on the border deprives him of the very issue that propelled his rise to power, and that drove the populist revolt against the Washington establishment whose offshoots included the Ron Paul candidacies, the Tea Party, and Republican victories in 2014 and 2016. Immigration is next only to the economy and to the courts as a place where the president can contrast his record and agenda with Biden’s and appeal to national solidarity and historical tradition. His parlous electoral status may be related to the fact that immigration is not much of a factor in this most unusual campaign.

There is no gainsaying immigration’s importance to the Trump presidency. It was immigration that triggered the grassroots rebellion against the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, and against congressional supporters of amnesty for illegal immigrants, culminating in Trump’s 2016 primary victory. Immigration became the touchstone of Trump’s campaign on day one and served as the cudgel by which he defeated Jeb Bush and other Republicans for whom the Bush-Obama approach to legalization was correct. The border wall was not only a rallying cry but also a symbol of how a Trump presidency would privilege American citizens above all else. And Trump fused immigration to economics, by opposing H-1B visas; to crime, by highlighting gang activity; and to national security, by enacting his travel ban against countries that sponsor terrorism.

Read the rest here.

 

USCIS: Long standing basic principle of U.S. immigration law: Alien must be self-sufficient when admitted to United States

By

Photo: Community Service Society.

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services

Public Charge Provisions of Immigration Law: A Brief Historical Background

Historical Origins of the Likely to Become a Public Charge (LPC) Exclusion

Note: Related

Strong sentiments opposing the immigration of “paupers” developed in the United States well before the advent of federal immigration controls. During the colonial period, several colonies enacted protective measures to prohibit the immigration of individuals who might become public charges.[1] In the nineteenth century, before the existence of a federal agency responsible for overseeing immigration policies, eastern seaboard states such as New York and Massachusetts enacted state laws that restricted the immigration of aliens deemed likely to become dependent on public institutions such as poor houses. These states also charged steamship companies a “head tax” for each foreign passenger they landed in order to defray the cost of caring for, and sometimes removing, indigent immigrants who ended-up in state-funded facilities.[2]

Steamship companies, merchants, and others who favored open immigration challenged state head-taxes as impediments to free commerce. In response, state charity boards argued for the necessity of the head-tax in funding the care of foreign-born paupers and favored stronger protective laws to prevent additional influxes of destitute immigrants who could not support themselves.[3] The legal dispute over the state head-taxes reached a turning-point in 1875, when a lawsuit challenging the practice brought by a shipping company against the Mayor of New York reached the Supreme Court.[4] The Court decided that the state-imposed head-taxes interfered with Congress’s authority to regulate commerce and struck them down. Fearing the loss of funds needed to administer immigration policies and care for poor immigrants, eastern states began to lobby Congress for a federal immigration head-tax to replace the defunct state taxes.

The eastern states’ concerns about poor immigrants and the cost of caring for them found expression in the first general federal immigration statute of 1882.[5] The 1882 law excluded “any person unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge.”[6] The 1882 Immigration Act also created a federal immigration head-tax, which was used to defray the cost of regulating immigration and to care for immigrants who arrived in the U.S., including those who fell into economic distress. However, the law did not create a federal immigration agency; instead it authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to enter into contracts with state immigration commissions to administer federal policies. Thus, in many ways, the 1882 federal law depended on state immigration commissions, who enforced the public charge exclusion policy and used money from the federal immigration head-tax fund to pay state and local charities that cared for immigrants.

While the 1882 federal law did not provide any definition of a “public charge” or any guidelines for determining who was likely to become one, state Immigration Commission reports suggest that officials took numerous factors into account, including an immigrant’s willingness to work, when making decisions in LPC cases. For example, in 1884 the Pennsylvania Board of Commissioners of Public Charities reported that a large number of Hungarians who were “poor, pecuniarily” were permitted to land because they were “strong, hearty people, and quite willing to work…”[7] In other cases the state boards landed questionable immigrants upon receiving guarantees from charitable organizations and/or bonds from the steamship companies that would be paid if the immigrants became public charges.

The general Immigration Act of 1891 completed the federalization of immigration regulation by creating the office of the Superintendent of Immigration and a federal Immigration Service to inspect all arriving aliens.[8] The 1891 law also retained the head-tax provision and the exclusion of “paupers or persons likely to become a public charge.”[9] In the Act of March 3, 1903 Congress added “professional beggars” as a class of exclusion.[10] A 1907 law then added additional language that excluded potential immigrants with a “mental or physical defect being of a nature which may affect the ability of such an alien to earn a living.”[11]  The Immigration Act of 1917 added “vagrants” to the LPC provision and this version of it remained substantially unchanged when it was incorporated into the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act.[12] The INA left the LPC policy substantively the same, but added language explicitly emphasizing the discretionary authority of administrative officers in the Department of State and the Immigration Service to determine the definition of “LPC.”[13] In sum, a version of the LPC provision has been part of federal immigration policy from its foundations and it consistently remained one of the most common grounds for immigrant inadmissibility.[14]

Brief History of Laws Providing for the Removal of Aliens Who Have Become Public Charges

In addition to providing for the exclusion of likely public charges, U.S. immigration law has long provided for the removal of immigrants who become dependent on public aid. The Immigration Act of 1891 established the federal government’s authority to remove aliens who entered unlawfully, a category that included immigrants who could be shown to have entered when they were LPC.[15] The 1891 Act also provided a deportability period of one year after arrival for immigrants who actually became public charges as the result of a condition that existed prior to their arrival. Congress extended this deportability period to two years in 1903 and three years in 1907[16]. The immigration Act of 1917 altered this provision, stipulating that aliens who became public charges “from causes not affirmatively shown to have arisen subsequent to landing” within five years of arrival were subject to deportation.[17] Additionally, the 1917 law removed the time limit on deportation: if an immigrant was shown to have become a public charge within five years of arrival they could be deported at any time, no matter how long they had resided in the U.S. The 1952 INA retained the provision that aliens who became public charges within five years of their arrival due to causes not affirmatively shown to have arisen since their entry could be deported at any time, and this has remained in the law since.

The Immigration Act of 1917 also provided for the removal at public expense of aliens who “fall into distress or need public aid from causes arising subsequent to their entry and are desirous of being so removed.”[18] Though not formal deportation, this law provided a means for the federal government to remove indigent aliens who desired to return to their home countries. During the Great Depression many aliens departed the United States under this voluntary provision.

There is much more here.