December 2014 Immigration News At a Glance

Written by Kara DeDonato

This month’s digest features an exclusive look at President Obama’s executive action on immigration and at the predominantly GOP-generated backlash against it. As always, it finishes with a summary of immigration news in the New York area.

A continued look at Obama’s executive action

As a quick recap, at its core Obama’s executive action provides millions of undocumented immigrants living in the United States with protection from deportation as well as work permits. To qualify, applicants must in particular prove that they have lived in the United States continuously since January 1, 2010.

The Washington Post looked at the president’s earlier initiative, DACA or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, to determine the potential pro’s and con’s of the executive action. The article noted that the cost of application fees, the fear of being rejected from the program and then deported, or simply the lack of information about the program due to language barriers, were and continue to be the biggest obstacles for DACA. However, the earlier program has been considered a success and has provided relief to many. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a component of the Department of Homeland Security, will administer both DACA and the new programs announced by the President’s executive action.

Applicants may also experience difficulty providing adequate documentation to qualify. As stressed in this article of The Christian Science Monitor, many undocumented immigrants have spent their lives avoiding leaving a record in order to prevent deportation. This may force individuals to think outside the box – for example, using movie rental receipts, veterinarian bills, or pictures posted on social media platforms like Facebook to prove their presence in the United States over the last five years.

The New York Times added a shortage of lawyers to the list of potential obstacles. Lawyers and advocacy agencies are already strained by the current caseload, which is expected to see an increase of about 250,000 applications per month.

Additionally, Obama’s executive action will not provide reprieve to close to six million undocumented immigrants. This Pew Research Center report provides an excellent breakdown of those who will be ineligible to apply for relief. Chief among these groups are immigrants who entered the US less than five years ago, and single men. The former group includes 250,000 individuals with US-born children living at home. Interestingly, employment status does not appear to affect eligibility at all.

Despite obstacles and gaps in eligibility, the overall response of immigrants and their advocates has been positive. Fox News Latino reported a steep increase in Latino approval ratings of the President following his announcement. In early December, the Latino approval rating of Obama was 25 points higher than the national average.

Executive action backlash

Following the President’s announcement, the GOP immediately set out in search of ways to block the executive action, but was forced to admit that it had limited immediate options (see this article in USA Today). According to The New York Times, Republicans are primarily looking to defund the executive action. However, this could prove difficult since the primary agency responsible for administering the new programs provided for under Obama’s executive order, USCIS, is entirely financed by immigration application fees, rather than by funding approved by Congress. Efforts by the GOP to thwart the bill in Congress could potentially lead to a government shutdown.

In early December, less than two weeks after Obama’s announcement, a group of 17 states led by Texas filed a federal lawsuit against the United States and several senior federal officials claiming the executive order to be unlawful. The full text of the complaint is available here. The number of states challenging the Obama administration over the executive action has grown to 24, “meaning nearly half of the country,” as reported by journalist Amanda Sakuma in MSNBC. The federal judge appointed to hear the cases is a longtime opponent of Obama’s immigration policies, which may prove to the advantage of Republicans.

In mid-December, another federal judge issued a memorandum declaring Obama’s executive action on immigration unconstitutional, in a case involving a Honduran immigrant facing criminal charges over his return to the US after being deported. While widely reported in media outlets (see The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, etc.), this first legal opinion was analyzed as having no immediate impact. Besides, several administration officials have sharply criticized the judge’s legal rationale for examining the constitutionality of Obama’s executive action in this specific case: an official from the Justice Department said that the decision of the judge was “unfounded and the court had no basis to issue such an order” (Politico).

Don’t miss reading the brief written by two policy analysts of the Center for American Progress to expose the “shaky” legal foundations of the lawsuits challenging Obama’s executive action. The brief showcases five arguments: the executive action is legal; it follows historical precedent; lawsuits against executive action have failed in the past; states will benefit economically from executive action; and challenging executive action “is tantamount to forcibly separating American families.”

On the lobbying front, founder and president of NumbersUSA Roy Beck continues to be the lead instigator of initiatives to mobilize the government as well as the general public against immigration reform. This New York Times article provides an in-depth look at his background and work, crediting him with the influence to sway moderate Republicans away from immigration reform.

Many still held onto a weak hope that the Obama’s executive action would force the GOP to get serious about comprehensive immigration reform to be enacted in place of the presidential order. However, as this VOA News article suggested, it looks like we will have to wait until after the 2016 elections.

This is bad news for everyone. Mr. Beck’s followers might want to take note of this Huffington Post article. Dragging out immigration reform is costing the United States: perhaps as much as $37 million USD per day.

Zooming in on New York City immigration news

In early December, Mayor Bill de Blasio convened a summit in New York City of a group of 17 mayors committed to support Obama’s executive action. City executives signed on to de Blasio’s “five-point challenge,” a “mayoral ‘war room’” to share expertise and strategies to facilitate the implementation of the order. Primary objectives include warning and protecting immigrants from fraudulent immigration service providers, and using various avenues to provide information and reach out to eligible applicants in immigrant communities.

A public-private partnership called the New York Immigrant Assistance Consortium has also been formed by several organizations, led by the New York Immigration Coalition and the Center for Community and Ethnic Media at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, to coordinate effectively the response given to Obama’s executive action in the city and surrounding region. Community organizations, legal service providers, city officials, and others will notably work together to prepare factsheets and workshops to inform and help eligible applicants.

Additionally, New York City’s City Council announced a new initiative to increase access to art and culture in immigrant communities throughout the city, particularly in underprivileged communities.