"El Magonista" | Vol. 11, No. 4 | February 9, 2023 -

A coalition of nine Republican-led states on Tuesday asked a federal court in Texas to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which shields “Dreamers” from deportation. 

The DACA program was implemented under the Obama administration in 2012 as a way to protect undocumented immigrants who were brought into the U.S. as children. Since its inception, it has faced regular legal challenges from conservative groups and states.

This coalition, which is led by Texas, is calling on the Southern District federal court to declare DACA “unlawful” and “unconstitutional,” according to court documents filed on Tuesday. The filings state that DACA should be prevented from accepting any new applicants and, in two years, prevented from approving renewal requests from existing Dreamers. 

The Southern District court, at the request of the same group of states, had previously blocked new applications for the program, ruling that “with the creation of DACA and its continued operation,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) violated the Administrative Procedure Act. 

However, the judge in question, Andrew Hanen, still allowed for current Dreamers to renew their status in the 2021 ruling. 

Hanen’s ruling at the time was based largely on the fact that the DACA program was created by a memo under the Obama administration and that it was not a formal rule. In August, DHS issued a final regulation to replace the memo and codify the DACA program and allow new applicants starting in October.

The group of states has now asked Hanen to review the Biden administration’s new regulation, claiming that this new move is also unlawful for the same reasons the initial memo was... READ MORE

By Justo Robles | The Guardian | FEB. 4, 2023 | Photo from Anadolu Agency

Immigrants express frustration as nine Republican-led states ask judge to end Obama-era program that gives temporary deportation relief.

It’s been almost 10 years since Areli Hernandez received her first US government work permit in her mailbox. Hernandez remembers staring at her own photograph and touching the scripted name on the card in disbelief, feeling that a long-sought dream had finally materialized.

But earlier this week, the program that gives temporary deportation relief to Hernandez and hundreds of thousands of other immigrants known as Dreamers, allowing a chance to live and work legally in the US, came under threat once again in a federal court.

Nine Republican-led states asked Judge Andrew Hanen in Texas to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) policy, a request that if successful would stop nearly 600,000 immigrants brought to the US as undocumented children from being able to renew their work permits and continue to be protected from potential deportation.

“I can’t plan ahead because my future consists of judges’ decisions,” said Hernandez, who was born in Mexico City and brought to the US at the age of five in the late 1980s. Hernandez was referring to her own Daca status, which is set to expire later this year. “I want to make choices that don’t depend on my card and an expiration date.”

The latest filing from the coalition of states led by Texas denounced Daca as “unlawful” and “unconstitutional”. The states urged Hanen to strike down the program, which was fortified by the Biden administration as a federal regulation last year after originally being created by the Obama administration in 2012.

Since its implementation, Daca has lifted the threat of deportation for approximately 825,000 individuals lacking legal status who were brought to the US by age 16 and before 15 June 2007, have studied in a US school or served in the military and don’t have a serious criminal record... READ MORE

While the Biden administration has accelerated processing after Trump-era restrictions and a pandemic slowdown, visa backlogs remain large.

The flow of immigrants and refugees into the United States has ramped up over the past year, helping to replenish the American labor force after a decline that began with restrictions imposed under the Trump administration and that was compounded by the pandemic.

The Biden administration has been accelerating visa processing and broadly using humanitarian parole programs for migrants fleeing war and economic instability. Those efforts have driven a rebound in the foreign-born population — welcome news for the Federal Reserve, which has been concerned that a persistent shortage of workers could send wages higher and lead inflation to become entrenched.

Friday’s employment report for January, showing a blockbuster gain of 517,000 jobs, confirms that the economy continues to demand more labor. Moderating wage growth, however, suggests that enough workers are arriving to keep costs in check.

“When the unemployment rate goes down, you would normally expect wage inflation to go up, but that’s not what’s happening,” said Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management. “So there must be something else moving in the labor force, and there is a very likely explanation here that immigrants are coming in and taking jobs.”

But despite the resurgence in the foreign-born labor force — about four-fifths of it are people legally allowed to work in the United States, by one calculation — there are bottlenecks.

Legal immigration remains below pre-Trump levels. Hundreds of thousands of people await interviews with U.S. consular officials to obtain immigrant visas. Millions of asylum cases are pending, and getting work authorization for those already here can take years... READ MORE

With the Republican Party in such a chaotic state as evidenced by the recent battle over who will be Speaker, and the surreal saga surrounding George Santos, it is hard to predict how a Republican Congress will behave, and who will end up as their nominee for President. But as evidenced by the first “investigation” and hearings convened by the now Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee—chaired by bomb-thrower Rep. Jim Jordan—around President Biden’s handling of the Southern border, it is a sure thing that immigration will remain one of their favored wedge issues.

Whether the President addresses it or not at his State of the Union message, you can bet the Republican responder will. Republican leaders trip over themselves in their eagerness to “own the libs” and excite resentment at the “woke” left.

Efforts like those by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to fly Venezuelan migrants (many of them asylum-seekers) to the progressive Democratic island of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., as well as busing migrants to Democratic cities of Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. (including to the residence of Vice-President Harris) are likely to continue so long as the actions breed continuous rewards on the right and the outrageousness of these actions is obscured by the fog of bitter partisan divides. In fact, Gov. DeSantis recently renewed his $12 million request for state budget funds for such purposes.

Underneath the cynical gamesmanship that treat migrants as mere props in the immigration debate—instead of as human beings and families desperately seeking freedom and opportunity, fleeing oppression, and pursuing the same American Dream as prior generations—is a false belief that immigration is an intractable problem that will plague the U.S. until draconian anti-immigrant policies (building a wall and shutting the border down, among other motions) are enacted... READ MORE

A Pennsylvania lawmaker is proposing allowing undocumented Pennsylvania students who were brought to the United States as an immigrant to be eligible for in-state tuition.

State Rep. Kevin Boyle (D-Philadelphia) said in a memo to House members that he plans to introduce legislation that would make an undocumented individual eligible to pay Pennsylvania resident tuition rates at any PASSHE institution, community college, or state-related university, provided they meet standards.

Boyle says those requirements would include but are not limited to, graduation from a public or nonpublic secondary school in the state, payment of state income taxes for at least three years before college enrollment, and providing an affidavit to the college or university that the student will apply to a become a permanent resident. 

“Nearly all these students had no choice in entering the United States, often being too young to decide, or even to remember,” said Boyle. “Most have lived in this country without incident for most of their lives and this is the only country they have known.”

In October 2022 a federal judge ruled that the current version of a federal policy that prevents the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children can continue, at least temporarily.

In 2016, the Supreme Court deadlocked 4-4 over an expanded DACA and a version of the program for parents of DACA recipients. In 2020, the high court ruled 5-4 that the Trump administration improperly ended DACA, allowing it to stay in place.

By Jane Hong | PRRI | FEB. 3, 2023 | Photo from PRRI

Americans’ views on policies that provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented migrants have become increasingly polarized along partisan lines over the past decade. PRRI data from 2022 shows that Democrats have become more supportive of such policies since 2013, with support rising by six percentage points, while support among Republicans has dropped by a whopping 13 points. That said, support for a pathway to citizenship among Americans overall has never fallen under 50% in the past decade, which means that proponents have consistently been able to claim that a majority of Americans support the idea.

Indeed, a longer look backward reveals a history of surprisingly enduring bipartisan support for the policy. This bipartisanship continues to manifest occasionally, including in a recent immigration billsponsored by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) at the end of the last Congress. The bill would provide a pathway to citizenship and regularize status for hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who are currently in the United States under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an interim policy enacted by President Obama in 2012, which stops short of allowing citizenship. However, the Tillis-Sinema proposal combines the pathway to citizenship with a number of draconian provisions that strengthen border control and extend Title 42, a Trump-era measure that allows for the expedited expulsion of migrants at the border on public health grounds, which was set to expire but has been kept in place by the Supreme Court... READ MORE

For indicted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the purpose in part of his latest lawsuitagainst the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy is to continue solidifying his extremist credentials. For the hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who’ve benefitted from the program, it’s continued uncertainty and stress—and a continued attack against their very place in this nation.

“We really see the cruelty of what Texas and the other plaintiffs are asking for, it’s just anti-immigrant rhetoric,” Juliana Macedo do Nascimento tells The Guardian. She’s called the U.S. home since she was a teenager, and is currently protected by DACA through 2024. Texas’ lawsuit seeks to stop all renewals by two years of a court decision. “It’s all part of this narrative that mostly brown people shouldn’t be in this country,” Macedo do Nascimento went on.

Paxton and eight other states have taken their case to a handpicked Texas judge with a history of ruling against pro-immigrant policy, notably a Obama-era policy that would’ve extended DACA-type protections to the undocumented parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents. That case was—shocker!—also led by Texas. GOP states are now back in front of Hanen to not only ask him to rule that the new DACA-related regulation issued by the Biden administration is unlawful, but that DACA renewals should stop entirely by two years of a ruling.

This would throw hundreds of thousands of lives into chaos—and Republicans know that, and want it. They also know that DACA recipients pump hundreds of millions in tax dollars into local and state coffers, yet still use this trope that immigrants are somehow hurting their states as their legal argument in court. No, it’s the states that are hurting immigrants. Texas alone has filed more than 20 immigration-related lawsuits that have most recently sought to block the expanded parole program for Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan migrants. 

“DACA recipients are allowed to buy houses, buy cars, and have these long-term debts,” Macedo do Nascimento noted. In Texas, more than 11,000 DACA recipients are homeowners. “But we can’t plan a family. We deserve a path to citizenship, it will allow us to have a sense of security.” Juan Jose Martinez-Guevara wrote in Texas Signal last December that he was “tired of the back and forth. Court decision after court decision, we find ourselves in a constant state of uncertainty and instability... READ MORE