El Magonista Newsletter | Vol. 10, No. 32 | August 26, 2022

By Caroline Simon | Roll Call | AUG. 24, 2022 | Photo by Caroline Brehman

The Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which started with a memo, becomes a federal regulation.

The Biden administration finalized a rule Wednesday to fortify the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program as it faces legal challenges, aiming to preserve protections for hundreds of thousands of “Dreamers.” 

The rule, set to go into effect Oct. 31, codifies into federal regulation the 2012 program that shields more than 600,000 undocumented immigrants from deportation and allows them to work legally in the U.S. For the past 10 years, the program has been governed by a Department of Homeland Security memorandum.

“Today, we are taking another step to do everything in our power to preserve and fortify DACA, an extraordinary program that has transformed the lives of so many Dreamers,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a news release. “Thanks to DACA, we have been enriched by young people who contribute so much to our communities and our country.”

The final rule unveiled Wednesday is similar to a proposed rule DHS released in 2021. There are some minor changes, such as a clarification that expunged criminal convictions and immigration offenses are not automatic disqualifiers for the program. DHS received 16,361 comments during the rule’s public comment period.

The rule preserves long-standing eligibility requirements for the program. To qualify, immigrants must have arrived in the U.S. by age 16 and before June 2007, must have studied at a U.S. school or served in the military, and must lack a serious criminal record.

The rule also retains the existing process for DACA applicants to seek work authorization and affirms the current policy that DACA is not a form of lawful status but DACA recipients, like other deferred action recipients, are considered “lawfully present.”

The rule could still face a legal challenge... READ MORE

By Ellen Gilmer | Bloomberg Law | AUG. 24, 2022 | Photo by Drew Angerer

The Biden administration on Wednesday released the final version of regulations intended to fortify the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program against legal challenges. 

The program, launched in a 2012 memo by the Obama administration, offers protection from deportation and the ability to work legally to some 600,000 undocumented young people who came to the US as children. The regulationreplaces the Obama-era memo and takes effect Oct. 31.

The Biden administration crafted the regulation in response to legal challenges that have plagued DACA since its inception. The rule doesn’t make the program bulletproof, however, as some litigants and judges question whether the Department of Homeland Security has authority to issue broad deportation protections at all.

“Today, we are taking another step to do everything in our power to preserve and fortify DACA, an extraordinary program that has transformed the lives of so many Dreamers,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

Mayorkas called on Congress to pass legislation to create a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients, often known as Dreamers. Many lawmakers quickly echoed that sentiment, pushing the Senate to take up House-passed legislation (H.R. 6) protecting Dreamers and other... READ MORE

A decade ago, the U.S. began accepting applications from young immigrants for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Hundreds of thousands of teens and young adults who came to the U.S. as children without legal status lined up to apply. Now, roughly 610,000 DACA recipients still rely on two-year extensions to live and work in the only country they know — all  while the program itself is challenged again in the courts. Without timely congressional intervention that provides interim protection, Dreamers might start being deported.

Last month, a three-judge panel in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans heard oral arguments led by the Texas attorney general, who argued that the DACA program exceeded executive authority and cost Texas hundreds of millions of dollars. Conversely, the U.S. Justice Department defended the program, fighting an uphill battle against a federal judge in Texas ruling one year ago declaring DACA illegal. In the interim, current DACA recipients are still allowed to apply for renewals, but new applicants are out of luck. Regardless of the Fifth Circuit’s outcome (expected this fall), it will be appealed to the Supreme Court, which could rule by the summer of 2023.

There is little doubt that SCOTUS will refrain from terminating the DACA program, which quickly creates a scenario where hundreds of thousands of eligible DACA recipients are left without legal status. For current DACA recipients, they’ll likely have until the expiration of their extension — less than two years — before they lose legal status too... READ MORE

By Laura Lucia Romero Mireles | Gaceta UNAM para leer en Espanol
AUG. 11, 2022 | Photo by Victor Hugo Sanchez

The UNAM-Los Angeles headquarters and the California-Mexico Studies Center brought a group of 33 young people to Ciudad Universitaria.

They heard their parents talk about UNAM; many want to return from the United States to be part of their enrollment in the postgraduate course. Today, thanks to the collaboration between the UNAM-Los Angeles headquarters and the California-Mexico Studies Center, a group of 33 young people made their dream of being in this house of studies come true and, for now, getting to know some facilities of Ciudad Universitaria.

As part of the California-Mexico Dreamers Study Abroad Program of that U.S. body, which this year will bring 180 dreamers into Mexico in six different groups, a forum was held in the auditorium of the University Museum of Contemporary Art (MUAC), where young people shared their testimonies and experiences.

Silvia Núñez, director of the UNAM-Los Angeles headquarters, stressed that the University is an inclusive space and engine of upward social mobility. "Thanks to the vision of the university authorities to accelerate the internationalization process, this institution today has 13 offices abroad, five of them in the American Union."

The former director of the North American Research Center, and professor of the master's degree in Mexico-United States Studies, stressed that this is an open house, where "we embrace them with wings, with wings... READ MORE

A bill that would have helped school districts open more dual-language immersion programs fizzled in the California State Assembly this month, crushing the hopes of many advocates of bilingual education.

Senate Bill 952 would have established a program to offer at least 20 school districts technical assistance and grants of up to $750,000 each to expand or establish dual-language immersion programs.

Dual-language immersion programs are designed to help both those who speak only English and those who speak only another language become bilingual by teaching all students in both languages. Research shows that these programs improve academic achievement for English learners, and at the same time benefit students who are native English speakers.

The bill was co-sponsored by Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, the California Association for Bilingual Education and Californians Together, a nonprofit organization that advocates for students who speak a language other than English at home... READ MORE

More than half of Americans say there's an "invasion" at the southern border, according to a new NPR/Ipsos poll, part of a broader decline in support for immigrants overall.

The poll also found that large numbers of Americans hold a variety of misconceptions about immigrants — greatly exaggerating their role in smuggling illegal drugs into the U.S., and how likely they are to use public benefits, for example — as false and misleading claims about immigration gain traction.

Republicans are more likely to hold negative views of immigrants. But the poll found they're not alone in embracing increasingly extreme rhetoric around immigration.

"Invasion" rhetoric is resonating with many Americans

The poll found that a majority of Americans — including three-quarters of Republicans — say it's either somewhat or completely true that the United States is "experiencing an invasion" at the southern border.

The U.S. Border Patrol has apprehended migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border more than 1.8 million times since October, setting an annual record for arrests with two months still to go before the fiscal year ends... READ MORE

 

Texas and California would be the states most affected by an eventual reduction in their workforce.

Ten years ago, under the government of then-President Barack Obama, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was launched. However, today it is classified as illegal by the courts in the country and is subject to review, but in the extreme case it could be canceled.

If so, thousands of workers in the country, in addition to becoming unemployed, would be at risk of being deported.

According to a report by FWD.us., every two months and for two years, the United States would lose 22,000 workers in the event of the end of DACA.

The analysis warns that the states most affected by the reduction in their workforce would be Texas and California, since there reside more than half a million migrants who benefit from the program that offers a work permit and protection against deportation.

Therefore, DACA beneficiaries and their families are waiting for an appeals court in Louisiana to issue a ruling on the legality of the program.

In early July, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals of New Orleans heard the arguments about the program... READ MORE

On Wednesday, the Biden Administration unveiled the new DACA rules, which followed an administrative process to avoid challenges in courts; the guidelines will enter into force on October 31 and represent an extra step for dreamers.

The Government of President Joe Biden advanced this Wednesday the new rules of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) , which will come into force as of October 31, and through which it seeks to avoid other legal challenges in courts.

The new rule responds to President Biden's memorandum of January 20, 2021, "Preserving and strengthening Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)", in order to avoid the persecution and deportation of the so-called 'Dreamers'.

“DACA reflects a position that these immigrants should not be a priority for removal , based on humanitarian concerns and other considerations, and that work authorization will allow them to support themselves and their families, and contribute to our economy,” he says. that Biden memo.

The president highlighted this Wednesday that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the 'dreamers' were found among essential workers... READ MORE

Scouring his high school class schedule, then-14-year-old Cris Abrego caught his breath.

TV Production.

It was 1986, and the incoming freshman, a self-described TV addict, assumed the course would teach Latino teens like him how to build television sets. After all, this was an era when students in working-class communities, including those at El Monte’s Mountain View High School, were encouraged to take auto or wood shop to prepare for a blue-collar life.

“When I found that it was actually to make television, I was blown away,” Abrego said.

That class would prove instrumental in shaping ambitions that would take him beyond El Monte. By his junior year, Abrego was lugging around a bulky TV camera, interviewing fellow athletes, cheerleaders and the principal for a student-produced show, “What’s Up,” which borrowed heavily from “The Arsenio Hall Show” — albeit with less glitz.

Today, Abrego is one of Hollywood’s few high-ranking Latino executives, overseeing U.S. and Latin American operations for reality TV juggernaut Banijay. The French-owned company owns rights to such shows as “Survivor,” “Big Brother” and “MasterChef.”

Still, the 50-year-old Abrego often has felt out of place in a business that has long embraced white executives, many from privileged backgrounds. It bothers him that Hollywood has been slow to recognize the effects of its insular attitudes, which can seep into programming consumed by... READ MORE

 

A main driver of democracy’s decline in the United States is Latinophobia — from its central role in the rise of Donald Trump to its influence in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Any news media company concerned with democracy should be engaged in a concerted and urgent campaign to stop this plague.

Instead, the news media are superspreaders for Latinophobia. Today, 54% of Americans suffer from the same delusion that motivated the coup attempt and other white terrorism: that the U.S.-Mexico border is being invaded. A new NPR/Ipsos pollfound 76% of Republicans and 40% of Democrats believe this fallacy is at least “somewhat true.”

Fox News isn’t alone in spreading the sickness. Left-of-center media are complicit, from NPR letting Trump peddle his anti-immigrant Big Lie in January after featuring open white supremacists to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow’s praise of Tucker Carlson this month. She called the Fox News host “talented” and compared their rivalry to a “game.”

Now, CNN’s new leaders are pushing a centrist approach that threatens the work of the network’s defenders of democracy.

On Thursday, CNN parted ways with media reporter Brian Stelter months after he publicly criticized John Malone, a billionaire Trump donor and the most powerful investor in CNN’s new owner, Warner Bros. Discovery. Malone had said CNN needed to “actually have journalists.” He cited Fox News as a model of attempting “news news.”

In his February “Reliable Sources” newsletter, Stelter wrote that Malone’s comments had offended many staffers and created fears about censorship of “calling out indecency and injustice.” A CNN employee told me some anchors are now wary of being direct with audiences.

Will the new leadership silence tough-questioning anchors such as Jim Acosta or Jake Tapper? The CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, David Zaslav, mentored by Malone, has said he wants CNN to be different from “advocacy networks,” and that he envisions a place where “everybody can come and be heard; Republicans, Democrats.”

For those who cherish the status quo because they’re wealthy, white and male, “neutrality” is a lofty ideal. Long-held notions of objectivity and impartiality often end up protecting elites’ interests... READ MORE