Bush Institute Monthly Immigration Update

Hello, Friends.

 

This month marks the 12th anniversary for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, an executive action providing immigration relief to some Dreamers – immigrants brought to the U.S. unlawfully as children. When it was announced by the Obama Administration, I remember hoping that it was just a temporary measure and that Congress would finally pass a permanent legislative solution. After all, Congress has had some form of bipartisan Dreamer legislation for more than 20 years. Dreamers are still waiting on Congress, more than a decade after DACA.

With little hope to move reforms through legislation, the Biden Administration is using executive action to achieve some of its immigration policy goals. Much of the attention has been on the border actions (you can read an excellent summary of that by the American Immigration Council). But this week the administration announced immigration relief – parole in place – for undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens and some undocumented children of U.S. citizens.

Approximately 500,000 undocumented immigrants could benefit from this action, which will provide deportation protections, work permits, and crucially, the ability to apply for a green card without leaving the U.S. A lot of the commentary is likely to focus on the undocumented spouses. More important to me are the American citizen children – more than one million – who may worry just a little less that their mom or dad will have to leave the country.

Executive action is not ideal. Our immigration system still needs permanent legislative change. But American families will benefit from this executive action. That’s at least a little bit of good news.

 

Kind regards,

Laura

Figure of the Month

114 Million

Data Dive

 

• One year after the opening of the first U.S. Safe Mobility Offices in Latin America, the program has received nearly 190,000 applications. Of these applicants, more than 34,500 have been referred to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), with 8,800 successful resettlements in the U.S.

• The Strauss Center’s latest report on asylum processing shows migrants are waiting up to eight months for a CBP One appointment. With an uneven distribution of appointments across points of entry and a myriad of other access problems, CBP One continues to be a chokepoint for migrants who are waiting to request asylum in the U.S. at a port of entry.

• In an article for The Dispatch, Gil Guerra lays out the potential implications of the election of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo for the country's relationship with the U.S. and immigration policies. Mexico is a strategic ally and economic partner with the U.S., but migration threatens to dominate our relationship.

• Vanity Fair has a pointed photo essay by Dara Lind (photos by Go Nakamura), “The Global Crisis that No Border Crackdown Can Fix.” As Lind puts so succinctly, “A decade of evidence shows that even the most dramatic crackdown works for only a few months, as people wait to learn how to get in under the new regime. The president can declare that the border is closed, but that doesn’t create a force field in the Arizona desert.”

• One fun thing: The U.S. men’s national cricket team made a splash this month with an upset of powerhouse Pakistan. The talent? Mostly immigrants!

• Read: Celebrate Immigrant Heritage Month by reading these five stories.

• Read: America must lead by welcoming refugees – as it did decades ago with my own family
  • For World Refugee Day, my colleague Margot Habiby wrote movingly about her family’s decades-long experience with displacement.

• June 25, HIAS: A Nation of Immigrants — Immigration and Election History in the U.S.

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