Welcome to the National Immigration Forum’s weekly bulletin! Every Friday, our policy team rounds up key developments around immigration policy in Washington and across the country. The bulletin includes items on the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, as well as some coverage at the state and local levels.

Here’s a breakdown of the bulletin’s sections:

DEVELOPMENTS IN IMMIGRATION THIS WEEK

Immigration policy is a dynamic field subject to constant change. Here, we summarize some of the most important recent developments in immigration policy on the federal, legal, state, and local levels.

Content warning: This section sometimes includes events and information that can prove disturbing.

Federal

FY 2024 Border Numbers Drop Amid Lower Crossings in September

In Fiscal Year 2024, Border Patrol apprehensions between ports of entry dropped 25% compared to the year before, as the agency documented fewer than 54,000 irregular encounters in September.

Behind these numbers are significant demographic shifts, with Mexicans and Central Americans — who are logistically easier for the U.S. to quickly process and deport — increasingly comprising those crossing into the U.S. without authorization. Other harder-to-deport nationalities such as Cubans, Haitians, and Venezuelans have begun to primarily rely on the CBP One phone app to enter legally at an official port of entry.

As a result, since the Biden administration's new asylum restrictions took effect in June through the end of September, 160,000 people have been removed or returned to more than 145 countries. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has significantly increased its use of the expedited removal authority, where individuals and families can be ordered removed by a border enforcement official without ever seeing the inside of a courtroom.

The U.S. has also leaned heavily on Mexico to make it harder for would-be asylum seekers to reach the U.S., by executing what critics have called a "merry-go-round," where migrants are constantly apprehended on their way north and sent back to Mexico’s southern states to resume their journey or give up. At the same time, asylum applications in Mexico are on the decline as migrants report difficulties accessing the system.

Even as the migrant apprehension numbers fall dramatically to parallel or even undercut pre-pandemic levels in 2019, a new report from ProPublica offers the pertinent reminder that "those of us over 20 have probably lived through periods of higher rates of border crossings before." In fact, the low number of border encounters during the Obama administration and early Trump years was an anomaly, "partly because of the [Obama] administration’s crackdown on many border crossers and because the country was recovering from a recession, when fewer jobs were available."

Even so, the Biden administration has tried to deter irregular migration and cut the number of crossings through increasingly severe asylum policies and regional cooperation on enforcement, with at times devastating results for those affected. Case in point: medical professionals at two hospitals near the border are seeing an uptick in severe injuries from falls at the U.S.-Mexico border wall, with one advocate blaming newly implemented Mexican enforcement checkpoints for the change.

"That forced the migration routes to move both east and west," said Pedro Rios of the American Friends Service Committee. "My conclusion would be that this shift means that people are crossing in areas where there are more layers of border wall, which increases the possibility of injuries and deaths."

Vance Targets Parole, Temporary Protected Status for Termination Under Potential Trump Administration

At a campaign event in Arizona on October 22, vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance spoke about plans to end parole and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for many thousands of immigrants during a possible Trump administration.

"What Donald Trump has proposed doing is we’re going to stop doing mass parole. We’re going to stop doing mass grants of Temporary Protected Status," Vance said. "Of course, you’re going to have people fleeing from tyranny, but that happens on a case-by-case basis, not by waving the magic government wand."

Although Vance referred to immigrants with TPS or similar protections as "illegal immigrants," individuals in these programs are legally living and working in the U.S.

Certain immigrants may request parole based on "urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit." These requests are granted on a case-by-case basis and allow the recipient to live in the U.S. legally for a short period. Separately, TPS lets immigrants from designated countries undergoing armed conflict, environmental disaster, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions receive temporary deportation protections and work authorization if they apply and are found eligible.

Over 1 million parolees and 863,000 TPS recipients could lose their temporary protections if these programs were targeted. These immigrants help fill labor shortages in critical industries, and losing parole or TPS would leave them vulnerable to deportation amid the ongoing crises in their home countries.

Legal

Ninth Circuit Rules Against Metering Policy

On October 23, a majority in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that "metering" — or border officials blocking asylum seekers from applying for protection at a U.S. port of entry after reaching a certain number of entries for the day — is unlawful.

Metering began under the Obama administration but was dramatically expanded under Donald Trump to strand asylum seekers in Mexico for weeks or months. The Ninth Circuit largely affirmed a lower court’s decision that had already determined these turnbacks violated U.S. law.

Notably, the appeals court’s ruling considered what it means to "arrive" in the U.S. — and whether someone asking for protection at the limit line has "arrived" for purposes of requesting asylum.

"For a person coming to the United States to seek asylum, the relevant destination is the U.S. border, where she can speak with a border official," wrote U.S. Circuit Judge Michelle Friedland. "A person who presents herself to an official at the border has therefore reached her destination — she has ‘arrived.’"

In a dissent, U.S. Circuit Judge Ryan Nelson called the majority opinion "wrong, troubling, and breathtaking," in part because it means the U.S. government has a responsibility to interview asylum seekers who technically remain on Mexican soil.

State and Local

Chicago Limits Shelter Access for Migrants, Asylum Seekers

On October 21, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) announced that the city was merging its migrant assistance and long-time unhoused program for a unified shelter system launching in January.

In the intervening months, Chicago is winding down its "landing zone" for arriving migrants and restricting first-time migrant placements to people who have been in the U.S. for 30 days or fewer. Extensions on stays will be limited to those with illnesses, disabilities, or pregnancies.

The end of the migrant-specific programs comes as border crossings have decreased and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has stopped sending busloads of migrants to Chicago for the time being.

But some advocates have raised concerns about a unified shelter system, given the differences in needs between newcomers and long-term unhoused populations.

"I would just encourage Chicagoans to understand that this is an opportunity for them to continue to serve a population that really has had extraordinarily difficult circumstances, and that just because the shelter system is changing doesn’t mean that our response to care for new arrivals should become less of a priority," said Alisa Bhachu, executive director of the Chicago Refugee Coalition.

BILLS INTRODUCED AND CONSIDERED

It can be challenging to keep up with the constant barrage of proposed legislation in Congress. So, every week, we round up new bills. This list includes federal legislative proposals that have recently been introduced and that are relevant to immigration policy.

Please follow this link to find new relevant bills, as well as proposed legislation from past weeks.

LEGISLATIVE FLOOR CALENDAR

The U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives are not expected to be in session from Monday, October 28 through Friday, November 1, 2024.

UPCOMING HEARINGS AND MARKUPS

Here, we round up congressional hearings and markups happening in the field or in Washington. 

There are no relevant hearings or markups announced for the week of Monday, October 28, 2024.

GOVERNMENT REPORTS

Reports by bodies such as the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the Congressional Research Service, and the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General provide invaluable information on immigration policy and practice. Here, we give brief summaries of new immigration-related reports, with links to the resources themselves in case you want to learn more.

There are no relevant reports for the week of Monday, October 21, 2024.

SPOTLIGHT ON NATIONAL IMMIGRATION FORUM RESOURCES

The Forum is constantly publishing new policy-focused resources that engage with some of the most topical issues around immigration today. Here are a few that are particularly relevant this week:

Where Texas Goes, the Nation Follows: State Legislatures and Immigration Enforcement

This paper considers the legacy of last year’s legislature in Texas, from far-reaching new practices that mean further surveillance and criminalization for newcomers, long-time Texans, and U.S. citizens alike, to more hostile, anti-immigrant laws in states nowhere near the U.S.-Mexico border.

Dreamers in the United States: An Overview of the Dreamer Community and Proposed Legislation

Dreamers are undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. They grew up and have lived in the U.S. for most of their lives. Many Dreamers have attended school and obtained postsecondary degrees, worked and contributed to the U.S. economy, and started families with U.S. citizen spouses and children.

Operation Lone Star: Texas's Logistical and Political Fireball

This paper provides background on some of the most significant practices related to Operation Lone Star, unpacking its consequences for the federal government, Texas’s leadership, cities in the U.S. interior, Texas border communities, and migrants themselves.

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*This Bulletin is not intended to be comprehensive. Please contact Alexandra Villarreal, Senior Policy and Advocacy Associate at the National Immigration Forum, with comments and suggestions of additional items to be included. Alexandra can be reached at [email protected]. Thank you.

Legislative Bulletin