US District Court Judge Dolly Gee ruled on Friday that the federal government cannot keep migrant children detained during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In its minutes, the court stated that while it “appreciates both ICE’s and ORR’s efforts to reduce the number of Class Members in their custody during the pandemic,” the plaintiffs challenging the ongoing custody of migrants “identified issues, mistakes, or omissions in both the ORR and ICE Juvenile Coordinators’ reports.”

The court ordered that, by July 17, ICE must release minors to available sponsors or with their guardians “with all deliberate speed” while also maintaining protocols such as social distancing, masking, and enhanced testing within detention areas.

As of June 8, there were 124 children in ICE custody, according to the ruling. The ruling, applies to children who have resided at the three facilities for more than 20 days.

As of Friday afternoon, there were around 8,858 detainees in ICE custody who have been tested for coronavirus, 751 of those tested were possitive, according to the agency’s statistics.

Amy Maldonado, an attorney who works with detained families, said Gee “clearly recognized that the government is not willing to protect the health and safety of the children, which is their obligation.”

“They need to make the sensible choice and release the parents to care for their children,” she said of the government.

ICE denied instituting a binary choice or separating any parents from their children “pursuant to ‘binary choice.'”

In a letter directed to acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Matt Albence, it read,

“The Administration must stop using this public health crisis as a means for implementing unlawful and inhumane immigration policies. In these extraordinary times, human suffering need not be compounded by locking up families or instilling fear in the hearts of migrant parents,”

Trump Told Mexico to Stop Migrants From Reaching the U.S. So Far, His Plan Is Working

Released just before the pandemic on Jan 28, 2020 by New York Times

 

 

 

Source: Court rules that US government must release migrant children held during COVID-19

DHS issued a Final Rule on Monday modifying the regulation governing the time frames by which USCIS must adjudicate initial applications for employment authorization (colloquially known as work permits) filed by aliens seeking asylum, and by which aliens can request renewal of such “(c)(8) employment authorization”.

 

• The Final Rule removes the 30-day deadline by which USCIS was required to adjudicate initial (c)(8) applications. That deadline was created in 1997, when the then-INS received 52,217 affirmative asylum applications. By FY 2017, in contrast, USCIS received 141,638 such applications.
• In FY 2013, USCIS received 41,021 initial applications for (c)(8) employment authorization. By FY 2019, the number of initial receipts had jumped to 216,038.
• Although USCIS does not charge a fee for those initial (c)(8) applications, and despite the massive increase in such applications, in FY 2017 a federal district-court judge issued an injunction requiring USCIS to adjudicate those applications within the 30-day regulatory deadline.
• The elimination of the 30-day deadline will discourage aliens from filing frivolous asylum applications after entering the United States illegally or overstaying their temporary nonimmigrant admissions in the hopes of living and working here indefinitely. It would also relieve USCIS from having to rubber-stamp (c)(8) applications.
• The Final Rule also eliminates a requirement that aliens with (c)(8) authorization file for renewal within 90 days of the date of expiration, in line with earlier regulatory amendments.
• On Friday, DHS will publish a separate Final Rule containing additional regulations relating to the issuance of a (c)(8) employment authorization, that will extend the wait time before an asylum applicant can apply for employment authorization from 150 days to 365 calendar days.

Full Story at: https://cis.org/Arthur/DHS-Changes-Rules-Asylum-Work-Permit-Applications

 

Source: DHS Changes Rules for Asylum Work Permit Applications

Trump Suspends Visas Allowing Hundreds of Thousands of Foreigners to Work in the U.S. but fast-tracking the rule-making process on foreign workers could invite legal challenges from opponents who say the administration did not follow the rules.

Trump Suspends Visas

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Trump violated the Administrative Procedure Act when he tried to terminate an Obama-era program aimed at protecting young immigrants from deportation. “The government could try and fast-track that process by not allowing the public to weigh in on the changes before they go into effect, but it is difficult to see that process surviving court review,” said Lynden Melmed, an immigration lawyer and the former chief counsel of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

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Source: Trump Suspends Visas Allowing Hundreds of Thousands of Foreigners to Work in the U.S.

Embed from Getty Images

 

 

The Department of Homeland Security has just taken a useful move to deport or deny re-admission to some 4,600 alien college grads who have been abusing the Optional Practical Training program. The aliens did so by paying a pretend employer to give them “reference letters”, which they use to maintain what looks like legal OPT status while working, in fact, for yet another employer, in the latter case illegally.

Source: DHS Drops Other Shoe on ‘Pretend Employers’ Fraud in OPT Program

Photos: Getty Images

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The Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration on Thursday from going ahead with its plan , announced in 2017, to end a program called DACA that protects about 700,000 young immigrants known as Dreamers from deportation. The ruling did not address the merits of the program or the decision to end it; the court ruled only on whether the administration had acted lawfully in trying.

Source: What Is DACA? And How Did It End Up in the Supreme Court?