Immigration – Page 2 – Maurice Belanger Consulting

White House Ends Special Treatment for Cuban Migrants

On January 12, the White House announced it would end the “wet foot, dry foot” policy toward Cuban migrants. What this means is that, going forward, Cuban migrants who enter the U.S. without authorization will be treated the same as other undocumented immigrants.

Since the 1960’s Cuban migrants have been presumed to be fleeing political persecution, a policy enshrined in the Cuban Adjustment Act. That law gives Cubans who make it into the U.S. automatic permanent resident status after one year. There have been changes over the years. In the mid-1990’s, the Clinton Administration tried to discourage Cubans from departing for the U.S. by boat in a policy that became known as “wet-foot, dry-foot.” Cubans interdicted at sea by the U.S. Coast were returned to Cuba. But Cubans who made it to U.S. shores were “paroled” into the U.S., and became eligible for permanent residence after one year.

With the U.S. and Cuba re-establishing diplomatic ties, there has been an uptick in the number of Cuban migrants traveling overland through Central America and Mexico to the U.S.-Mexico border—out of concern that the deal offered by the Cuban Adjustment Act would soon end. With the administration’s new policy, Cubans will no longer be paroled into the U.S., closing off the opportunity for automatic permanent residence. Instead, Cubans who fear persecution upon return will have to make their case through the asylum process, just like any other migrant.

I explain more about this policy and the Cuban Adjustment Act in my post on Immigration Impact.

Photo courtesy of Coast Guard News under the Creative Commons 2.0 license.

First Look at DHS Nominee Kelly’s Immigration Views

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In the Senate hearing on his nomination to be Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security on January 10, General John Kelly had to answer questions on a wide range of issues over which the Department has jurisdiction. Some of those questions pertained to immigration.

Kelly’s responses gave us a flavor of his views on immigration on broad policy issues, though when asked questions that were about specific policies, he was generally not prepared to answer.

Overall, Kelly’s views on immigration are more nuanced than the president’s. For example, concerning the current migration flows from Central America, he understands that violence, driven by the drug trade that in turn is driven by American drug consumption, is forcing people to flee.

Concerning the “Muslim ban” that the president campaigned on, Kelly said that he doesn’t “agree with registering people based on ethnic or religion or anything like that.”

You can read more about the hearing on my blog post on Immigration Impact.

Ending DACA Will Have an Economic Downside

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an initiative of the Obama administration that has proven to be an enormous success with the 740,000 beneficiaries of the program, has yielded gains not just for the individual beneficiaries, but also for the communities in which they live, their employers, and government at all levels.

Ending the program, as the president-elect has vowed to do, comes with an economic downside. If DACA recipients lose their work authorization and no longer can work, they will lose their earnings, the economy will suffer and the government will lose tax payments. Two recent studies have estimated what the end of the DACA program would cost the U.S. economy, the Medicare and Social Security systems, and employers who will incur costs if they are forced to replace their workers.

Once in office, the new Administration will have to ask itself whether it really makes sense to have employers, communities, and governments incur such costs to reverse an initiative that has not only been a tremendous success for its recipients, but also popular with the general public. One can only hope that, after the transition has taken place, the business sense that Mr. Trump is reputed to have will translate to common sense with regards to the DACA initiative.

Read more on my post on Immigration Impact.

Photo credit: 401(K) 2012.

DHS Nominee’s Migration Views are Nuanced

130320-D-TT977-044 Commander, U.S. Southern Command Gen. John F. Kelly, U.S. Marine Corps, briefs the media in the Pentagon on March 20, 2013. Kelly addressed topics ranging from detainees at Guantanamo Bay to partnerships with Central and South American countries. DoD photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley, U.S. Navy. (Released)

On one level, the views of President-elect Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Department of Homeland Secretary appear to be aligned with his boss’s focus on securing the border. Kelly also supports enhanced border security, but he believes that a wall is not going to stop people from coming here. In Senate testimony early last year, he said that, “addressing the root causes of insecurity and instability is not just in the region’s interests, but ours as well.”

His more holistic approach to the region’s problems may clash with immigration hardliners that Trump has surrounded himself with. For them, it is sufficient to enforce immigration laws and to build barriers to keep people out.

How will Kelly’s more nuanced views about migration translate to DHS policy towards the women and children who Kelly knows are fleeing violence and instability? How will his views shape the treatment of millions of undocumented immigrants who are today so much a part of our communities?

Read more on my post on Immigration Impact.

Photo credit: DoD photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley, U.S. Navy. (Released) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

New Data Places a Value on Immigrant Lost Potential

A new report by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) on the issue of “brain waste” describes the most important factors that result in high-skilled immigrants being underemployed (that is, high-skilled immigrants in low-skill jobs) or unemployed. For the first time, this report estimates the earnings lost from underutilized immigrant skills.

MPI researchers determined that the 1.5 million high-skilled immigrants working in low-skill jobs earn a total of $39.4 billion less each year than they would if they were employed in jobs appropriate to their skill level. The forgone earnings translate into a total of $10.2 billion in lost state and local tax revenue, according to the report.

This new research gives advocates the tools to go to policy makers at the state and local level and show them what their return on investment will be when they support programs to help skilled immigrants gain whatever extra training they need to gain employment in high-paying jobs appropriate to their skill level. A modest investment of public funding will lead to a big boost in earnings and, as a result, a big boost in taxes paid.

Read more in my post on Immigration Impact.

Photo credit: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

President-elect’s Immigration Team Favors Dark View of Immigration

A group that favors a hard line towards both legal and illegal immigration released a document with transition ideas for the incoming administration. There was nothing new in the document, which laid out the same extreme views that have mostly been on the margins of the immigration debate. What is new is the receptivity of those nominated to hold key posts with jurisdiction over immigration policy.

The dark views of the incoming president and his team make it very likely that restrictionist and extreme views on immigration will now be taken seriously. Their energy will be focused on preventing immigrants from coming to this country and on removing those who can be removed. Whether the president-elect spends more time and energy on immigration is unclear, however those he is putting in positions of power will no doubt keep their sights focused on these goals. Their views are antithetical to those of a welcoming, inclusive America where the success of all will be critical to our continued prosperity.

Read more comparing the views of some of President-elect Trump’s nominees with those of the anti-immigrant group Federation for American Immigration Reform on my post on Immigration Impact.

Photo credit: James Palinsad.

Education Leaders Speak Out to Defend Undocumented Students

Amidst all the talk from immigration hardliners, including the incoming president, of ending President Obama’s wildly successful program to protect undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, America’s college and university leaders are speaking out to defend their students. Hundreds of education leaders across the country have signed on to a “Statement in Support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program and our Undocumented Immigrant Students.”

The statement, organized by Pomona College in California, includes all of the nation’s Ivy League Universities as well as the nation’s largest four-year public university system, the California State Universities. The statement reads in part, “…DACA should be upheld, continued, and expanded. … This is both a moral imperative and a national necessity. America needs talent — and these students … are already part of our national community. They represent what is best about America, and as scholars and leaders they are essential to the future.”

President-elect Trump has favored a hard-line message on immigration, but the public does not support deporting these young people, who are American in all but their papers.

Read more about the effort of colleges and universities to protect undocumented students on my post on Immigration Impact.

Photo credit: Alejandro Mallea

Trump “Softening” on Immigration? This Might Explain Why

On August 25, the Pew Research Center released a new national poll on American attitudes towards undocumented immigrants. Taking a look at the results, it is not hard to understand Donald Trump’s apparent “softening” on immigration during the same week.

Despite his efforts to paint undocumented immigrants in dark terms, the public overall does not buy Trump’s rhetoric. According to Pew, three-quarters (76 percent) of the public says that undocumented immigrants are as hard-working or as honest as U.S. citizens. Two-thirds (67 percent) say that undocumented immigrants are no more likely than U.S. citizens to commit serious crimes. The wall isn’t all that popular either: 61 percent of the public opposes it.

Pew asked respondents what they thought the priority should be in the government’s handling of illegal immigration. A plurality, 45 percent, said that the government should focus on both “better border security and stronger enforcement” and “creating a way for immigrants already here illegally to become citizens if they meet certain requirements.” An additional 29 percent said that the latter—allowing undocumented immigrants to stay and become citizens—should be the priority. In total, then, 74 percent of the public in this survey favors giving undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship if conditions are met.

This is consistent with polls taken over the course of the past year. Mr. Trump has been (until a week ago) unrelenting in his efforts to tar all undocumented immigrants with the crimes of a few. It hasn’t had much effect on public attitudes, which have stayed in a range of 55 percent to 84 percent in favor of allowing undocumented immigrants to stay.

Someone in Trump’s camp must occasionally look at polls, and someone perhaps told him that the public doesn’t buy his line on immigrants. So why continue to press it? A softer stance, though, upsets his base. We’ve watched his position ping pong back and forth, “soft” and “hard,” until he indeed accomplished one campaign promise: he’s made our heads spin.

More detail on public attitudes on a path to citizenship for the undocumented, as measured in polls over the past year, can be found in this paper I wrote for the National Immigration Forum.

Trump Helps Shape Latino View of Republican Party

Last month, I wrote about how Donald Trump has polled among Latinos over the past year. His pronouncements on immigration and Mexican immigrants have made him very unpopular with Latinos. While Trump almost seems to relish turning people against him, his Latino problem goes beyond damage to his campaign—it is affecting the way Latinos view the Republican Party. Trump is not exactly an ambassador for the party. In this post, I’ll look back over the past year’s worth of polling of Latinos in the U.S., and focus on attitudes towards the GOP.

The first poll of Latino voters that was released after Trump’s campaign launch was conducted by Univision Notices and was partially conducted prior to Trump’s speech. The majority of respondents (52%) questioned prior to Trump’s campaign launch already had an unfavorable view of the Republican Party. However, the party’s unfavorable rating ticked up after Trump made his announcement—to 56 percent. In this survey, 92 percent of respondents said they thought the immigration issue was “very” (72 percent) or “somewhat” (20 percent) important in considering their vote. A majority (52 percent) said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who opposed legalizing undocumented immigrants.

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A Pyrrhic Victory

On June 23, the Supreme Court deadlocked 4-4 in a case brought by the state of Texas and 25 other states against President Obama’s executive action that would have temporarily protected from deportation the undocumented parents of U.S. citizen children. At issue as well was an expansion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA). (The original DACA program, which has successfully protected hundreds of thousands of young people, was not the subject of this litigation.) As a result of the deadlock, a lower court’s temporary injunction against the executive actions remains in place.

The decision was an extreme disappointment for advocates for immigrants and for about five million undocumented immigrants who have lived here for many years, working and raising their families in a legal limbo.

The Supreme Court’s decision was a victory for the Republican governors and attorneys general who brought the lawsuit, and it demonstrated that shopping for the right judge can bring the desired decision. (That, and having a Senate that has stopped doing its job, refusing to consider the President’s nominee for the Supreme Court, making a 4-4 deadlock possible.)

But it is a pyrrhic victory. It preserves the status quo, for now. It’s worth repeating something I wrote a year and a half ago when the injunction was first issued.

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