Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Immigration Roundup: DACA Turns One

by Laura D. Francis

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Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano June 15, 2012, announced that the Obama administration was launching a program to avert deportation and grant work authorization to young, undocumented immigrants who were brought into the country as children—otherwise known as “DREAMers.”

A year later, over 360,000 DREAMers have been approved under the deferred action for childhood arrivals program, out of a total of close to 540,000 applications.

Immigrant advocates hailed the program’s one-year anniversary, saying it is helping to build momentum for an overhaul of the immigration system and that it shows how one element of that overhaul—granting legal status to undocumented immigrants—can work.

But DACA hasn’t made it through the past year without some bumps along the way.

For one, the pace of incoming applications has been on the decline since October of last year, when U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services received 116,224 applications. Only 23,217 applications were submitted in May 2013, the most recent month for which data are available.

A survey by the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the American Immigration Council, and the Immigration Advocates Network found that the $465 application fee is a barrier to filing an application, as are USCIS's treatment of criminal history, lack of sufficient evidence, and the possibility of other immigration relief. Respondents also said the drop in applications may be related to the best and most-qualified applicants already having applied, that potential applicants are concerned about information on the application being used against them, and that potential applicants are waiting to age in or complete the educational requirements.

On the legal front, a federal judge in Texas issued a decision in April agreeing with a group of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that DACA violates federal immigration law, but he withheld ruling in the case pending resolution of a jurisdictional question.

More recently, the House June 6 approved a Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill after adopting, on a largely party-line vote, an amendment that would ban implementation of DACA and ICE’s prosecutorial discretion policy.

DACA beneficiaries also have had state-level battles over access to driver’s licenses, which they and the American Civil Liberties Union—which has filed lawsuits on their behalf—claim are necessary for them to be able to work.

A federal judge in Arizona in May held that the state’s policy of accepting employment authorization documents from other immigrants, including those in deferred action status under other programs, but not from DACA beneficiaries violates the 14^th Amendment’s equal protection clause. There also is a federal lawsuit pending against a similar policy in Nebraska, although no ruling has issued yet.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) June 4 vetoed a bill that would have granted driver’s licenses to immigrants who show a DACA approval notice as proof of lawful presence—although Florida does accept valid EADs regardless of immigration status.

What will year two bring for DACA? Its fate most likely will be decided by Congress and whether it passes a comprehensive immigration overhaul bill this year.

In Other News:

• The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation June 18 estimated that the comprehensive immigration bill (S. 744) currently pending in the Senate would reduce the federal deficit by $197 billion between 2014 and 2023 and by roughly $700 billion between 2024 and 2033. In a separate report, CBO and JCT said the bill would boost the gross domestic product, the size of the workforce, wages, and productivity.

• Nine 7-Eleven Inc. owners of franchises in New York and Virginia have been charged with identity theft, wire fraud, and criminal immigration violations in an alleged scheme to hide the systematic hiring of dozens of undocumented immigrants. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the case is the largest criminal immigration forfeiture in its history, stemming from the largest criminal immigrant employment investigation ever conducted.

• The House Judiciary Committee June 19 approved Chairman Bob Goodlatte’s (R-Va.) Agricultural Guestworker Act (H.R. 1773) on a party-line vote. Unlike the farmworker provisions in the comprehensive Senate bill, the House bill would create a new H-2C guestworker visa that would require holders to return to their home countries after 18 months. It also would not grant a path to permanent legal residence or citizenship for undocumented farmworkers currently in the country, although they would be eligible to obtain H-2C visas.

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