Lawmakers are pushing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem to make the agency’s position on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients clear, reports Ximena Bustillo of NPR.
More than three dozen Democratic and independent lawmakers sent a letter to Noem in response to statements from DHS earlier this summer that "illegal aliens who claim to be recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) are not automatically protected from deportations"and that "DACA does not confer any form of legal status in this country."
DACA, created in lieu of action from Congress to help people brought into the United States without authorization as children, offers work eligibility and temporary protection from deportation but not a direct path to citizenship. As our polling has shown, strong majorities of Americans support a permanent solution for DACA recipients and other Dreamers.
Separately, Noem ended protections for about 250,000 Venezuelans, terminating their Temporary Protected Status (TPS), reports Rebecca Beitsch of The Hill.
Biden administration implementations of TPS for Venezuelans already here cited “widespread political instability and food insecurity that has wracked the country for years, causing millions to flee,” Beitsch notes. Noem’s announcement came after an appeals court affirmed Friday that an earlier attempt to “vacate” TPS for Venezuelans was unlawful.
Welcome to Thursday’s edition of The Forum Daily. I’m Dan Gordon, the Forum’s VP of strategic communications, and the great Forum Daily team also includes Jillian Clark and Clara Villatoro. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected].
DEPORTATIONS VS. OUR NEEDS — In preparing to deport his employee Josue, “We’re deporting exactly the kind of person America needs,” Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry CEO Sachin Shivaram writes in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel op-ed. Joe Schulz of Wisconsin Public Radio has more on the employee, Josue Rodriguez, and his family. Meanwhile, in his op-ed for The Washington Post, former National Security Council director for resilience Jesse Humpal suggests an “iron card” for working-class immigrants to help fill labor gaps.
OPPORTUNITY — Immigration policy reforms must align with the United States’ economic needs, Forum Fellow Michael DeBruhl writes in an El Paso Times op-ed. With significant labor shortages and tension surrounding immigration enforcement tactics, DeBruhl highlights the rare opportunity the president has to “reshape immigration policy and turn today’s challenges into a historic economic catalyst.”
TEMPORARY JUDGES — The Department of Defense is authorizing up to 600 military lawyers to serve as temporary immigration judges, reports Konstantin Toropin of the Associated Press. Recently, more than 100 trained immigration judges have been fired or left voluntarily. Employing temporary judges who lack immigration-law expertise “makes as much as sense as having a cardiologist do a hip replacement,” said Ben Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
HELPING HANDS — In Pittsburgh, the Christian Immigration Advocacy Center (CIAC) helps legal immigrants stay in the United States despite difficult political times, reports Bonnie Kristian of Christianity Today. Through the U.S. Department of Justice’s Recognition & Accreditation Program, CIAC staff can provide select legal services to low-income immigrants and refugees. The program, expected to serve more than 1,000 individuals this year, helps those in need while spreading God's love, Kristian writes.
P.S. Contrary to Trump administration claims in court, a Guatemalan government report indicates that many family members of unaccompanied Guatemalan children in the U.S. did not want their children returned to Guatemala, report Emily Green, Ted Hesson and Kristina Cooke of Reuters.
