EL MAGONISTA | VOL. 11, NO. 1 | JANUARY 5, 2023

By Stuart Anderson | Forbes | JAN. 3, 2023 | Photo by Richard Drew for AP

Here’s what to expect from President Biden, his administration and the Republican majority in the House on H-1B visas and other immigration issues in the new Congress.

 

Republicans Take The House

Starting in January 2023, Republicans become the majority in the House of Representatives. The policy differences between a Democratic-led Senate and the Republican-led House will make passing immigration legislation less likely.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), the most recent chairs of the House Judiciary Committee and immigration subcommittee, have been pro-immigration on business immigration, family immigrants, refugees, asylum and other issues. A national anti-immigration organization gave their replacements, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and expected subcommittee chair Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA), the highest grades possible on an “immigration reduction report card” in 2022.

Employers and universities should not expect a welcome reception on immigration in the House. Republican witnesses at immigration hearings during the past two years favored a hardline stance on illegal immigration but also included a left-wing critic of business immigration and international student policy. Many House hearings will likely focus on the border and may include field hearings. Republicans have promised to investigate and possibly impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas... READ MORE

The husband of newly-elected Illinois Democratic congresswoman Delia Ramirez, 39, could face deportation along with hundreds of thousands of others if Congress does not act to pass DREAM Act legislation during its next session.

Boris Hernandez, who married Ramirez during the pandemic, arrived in the US as a 14-year-old under a 2012 Obama-era policy known as DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). 

It allowed certain immigrants who came to the US as children, also known as 'Dreamers,' to apply for protection from deportation and to receive a work permit.

Hernandez is one such DACA recipient and has lived in the US for most of his life but even though he is legally married to Ramirez, a US citizen, it still means together they are a 'mixed-status family' and he is still not a US citizen, nor can he vote for his own wife.

'I'm going to be fighting to keep my husband here and I'm a member of Congress. …. What happens to the other 2 million undocumented immigrants that the DREAM Act would protect? What happens to his brother? What happens to my best friend from high school? What happens to all of them who have no pathway, who don't have a citizen husband or wife or partner?' Ramirez asks.

The DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) would provide a pathway to citizenship for around 2 million undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children... READ MORE

Number is highest in nearly 15 years after Covid pandemic caused a backlog in the system.

Nearly 1 million immigrants became US citizens in 2022, the highest number in almost 15 years after the Covid-19 pandemic caused a backlog in the system.

According to new figures from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the countries where most of these new citizens came from were Cuba, the Philippines, India, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

Citizenship interviews and ceremonies were suspended at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to a backlog of applications that were only approved last year. According to the Pew Research Center, the backlog of pending naturalization applications stands at 673,000 as of the end of June 2022.

At the start of the pandemic, financial difficulties plagued the USCIS, which heavily relies on application fees, leading to a reduced workforce capacity and the closure of its field offices. There was a hiring freeze at the agency between May 2020 and April 2021 that led to a shortage of adjudicators who oversee the application process.

Under the Biden administration, the USCIS said it “returned to firmer fiscal footing, with cash reserves well on their way to the designated target level, to ensure the agency avoids another fiscal crisis”.

The USCIS, along with the Department of State, also issued twice the number of employment-based immigrant visas in 2022 as before the pandemic.

“This was an all-hands-on-deck effort across the agency given that any unused visas at the end of the fiscal year would become unavailable starting on Oct. 1, 2022.”

Despite the new citizens, US immigration policy remains a flashpoint. Title 42, presented as a public health law, was introduced at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in order to allow the expulsion of migrants and asylum seekers at the southern border. Last month, the supreme court temporarily blocked the Biden administration’s attempt to terminate the policy... READ MORE

Divided government is back, baby.

After two years of unified Democratic control, a split Congress is upon us again in 2023. 

This time, it comes in the form of a Democrat-controlled Senate and a Republican-controlled House. Both have their own policy priorities and are expected to clash over a series of must-pass bills on the debt ceiling, government funding, and agriculture policy. Because there’s likely to be little Democrats and Republicans agree on, each majority has signaled it plans to focus on what can be done unilaterally: Senate Democrats will be committed to advancing judges, while House Republicans have laid out a game plan for scrutinizing the Biden administration. 

Below is a look at what both chambers could prioritize, and a glimpse of some longer-shot issue areas where they could collaborate. 

What The House Wants

House Republicans have been clear that investigations of Biden administration officials will be a central focus in the new term, and that they aim to home in on specific individuals, including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who they claim has exacerbated the border security crisis. In a press conference last winter, some conservative lawmakers indicated that they were interested in impeachment, arguing that Mayorkas has not sufficiently deterred migrants at the border. 

“If Secretary Mayorkas does not resign, House Republicans will investigate every order, every action, and every failure will determine whether we can begin an impeachment inquiry,” likely Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said in November. Republicans’ targeting of Mayorkas, ultimately, would be more of a symbolic and messaging tactic. Even if they impeached Mayorkas, the Democratic-controlled Senate is unlikely to vote to remove him. Instead, any investigation or impeachment trial would function as a way to keep the issue of border security in the spotlight ahead of 2024... READ MORE

Imagine what it’s like to live in a state of perpetual uncertainty — at any moment you could lose your job because you no longer have the right to work legally. Picture families ripped apart — a mother sent back to a country she barely remembers, forced to leave her child behind. What would you do if the teachers, doctors and nurses in your community were suddenly barred from entering your children’s classrooms or treating your loved ones?

As someone who is protected by DACA, I think a lot about this.

During this lame duck session of Congress, while Democrats still control both chambers, there was an opportunity to keep this scenario from becoming a reality. A bipartisan proposal, led by Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Thom Tillis, would have provided a path to citizenship for about two million immigrant youths, including recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. But negotiations to include it in the 2023 omnibus appropriations bill failed.

This might’ve been the last chance to save DACA. The program remains under attack and could be undone by the Supreme Court as early as next year, ripping away work permits and protections from deportation for hundreds of thousands of young people. Republicans, readying to seize control of the House in less than two weeks, have already made it clear that they won’t advance legislation that protects undocumented immigrants... READ MORE

WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders who wanted to strike a deal on immigration reform before the end of the year saw their hopes dashed Thursday.

Democrats saw the lame-duck session between the November election and the start of the new Congress as the last chance to pass significant legislation before they lose their majority in the House. They had hoped to attach immigration reforms to a $1.7-trillion package to fund the government that passed the Senate Thursday afternoon.

Lawmakers considered bills that would have offered pathways to citizenship for farmworkers, for Afghans evacuated to the U.S. since last year and for so-called Dreamers brought to the United States as children. Another proposal would have removed caps on the number of green cards granted each year to people from any given country.

None of those bills advanced.

Instead, supporters of immigration reform found themselves playing defense. On Thursday morning, senators only narrowly defeated an amendment by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) that would have indefinitely extended the use of Title 42, the public-health code measure that allows border agents to expel migrants without considering their claims for asylum.

“I am not giving up on you — don’t give up on me. We are going to fight for you to win,” Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) told dozens of Dreamers at a rally last week, his voice cracking with emotion.

The moment illustrated the frustration some lawmakers felt as another opportunity to bring changes to the immigration system came and went.

Perhaps the broadest and highest-profile of the reform proposals that failed to advance came from Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, a former Democrat who is now an independent, and Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Their legislation would have bolstered border security funding and expanded the use of detention facilities in exchange for a pathway to citizenship for roughly 2 million immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.

Tillis and Sinema had reportedly been in talks for months about the deal, which also would have extended Title 42... READ MORE

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced Thursday morning that he’s reached an agreement with colleagues on amendments to the 4,155-page omnibus so the Senate can pass the bill later in the day and give the House a chance to act Friday.   

And it looks like his savior may be independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), who on Thursday introduced an amendment to increase border funding and resources for border communities and extend the Title 42 health policy that expedites the deportation of migrants seeking asylum in the United States. 

Sinema’s amendment could give political cover to centrist Democrats to vote against a proposal sponsored by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) to cut funding for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s office unless the Biden administration reinstates the Trump-era Title 42 policy. 

Democrats say Lee’s amendment would sink the omnibus in the House if it passes the Senate. 

Schumer said on the floor that senators and staff had worked until 2 a.m. to work out a deal on amendments but failed to reach one.  

Then, just before 10 a.m., Schumer announced a deal with Republicans to vote on a block of 15 amendments, giving the Senate a chance to pass the $1.7 trillion omnibus later in the day... READ MORE

CNN — The strange reality of the dysfunctional, duct-taped US border policy is that a key portion was written by former President Donald Trump’s administration during the pandemic, enforced under pressure by the administration of President Joe Biden and is now at the whim of the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, CNN reporters on both sides of the border with Mexico on Tuesday encountered people who have already risked their lives on thousand-mile journeys to make it into the US.

The plodding end of Title 42, as the Trump-era policy is known, has the government bracing for a surge of migrants it has long known would be coming. The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court for more time Tuesday night to prepare for the end of a policy it officially opposes.

The Department of Homeland Security has projected between 9,000 and 14,000 migrants could attempt crossing the Southern border each day. Read more about Title 42 from CNN’s Catherine Shoichet... READ MORE

The administration has extended relief to hundreds of thousands of migrants over the past two years, and advocates want to see more.

Two years into an administration that faces legislative inaction and numerous legal challenges to its immigration agenda, the Temporary Protected Status program has emerged as a key tool for President Joe Biden.

The program allows immigrants who cannot safely return to their home countries to work legally and avoid deportation for 18-month periods. And it allows Biden to unilaterally designate which countries are eligible, bypassing Congress.

That has enabled Biden’s Department of Homeland Security to deliver immigration relief to hundreds of thousands of people, even as lawmakers fail to advance other immigration policies and Republican-led states use lawsuits to hamper other initiatives, including the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Biden has more than doubled the number of immigrants eligible for TPS, according to an analysis from the Cato Institute. In January 2021, 411,326 people were eligible. That number has since risen to 986,881.

And in 2023 — when a Republican-controlled House is unlikely to pursue any immigration overhaul — advocates and lawmakers want Biden to go even further... READ MORE

“One year turned into 21.”

That’s how Alejandro González Iñárritu described the time he’s spent living in the United States during a recent interview. He was in a Beverly Hills hotel promoting his latest film, “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths,” now streaming on Netflix.

The film, he explained in Spanish, existed “to question the narratives, mine first and that of my country, the collective one.” Iñárritu moved from Mexico City to Los Angeles in 2001, just a few years before I also left the Mexican capital as a teenager for a chance at something better up north. Nos fuimos buscando norte, as people say.

And while he’s an Oscar-winning image maker, both revered and derided, and I’m an undocumented journalist allowed to work here through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the yearning for a homeland becomes kinship through our conversation. The understanding of what’s left behind to grow elsewhere is a common language, perhaps even more direct than any spoken one.

Immigration has served as a recurrent subject in his work, on the screen and off. And the director has actively tried to offer people like me an alternative route to belonging through ReconoceR, a scholarship initiative Iñárritu created with the University of Monterrey in northern Mexico to help “dreamers” born in Mexico but raised in the U.S., who may be prevented by immigration status and financial hardship from accessing higher education stateside.

We discussed “Bardo” not so much in filmic terms, but as an anatomy of migration that distills the essence of the experience regardless of one’s circumstances. To me, it’s not a movie about success, or even specifically about a filmmaker, but about a fragmented identity, and our futile efforts to make it whole, even if only for a few moments at a time... READ MORE