Your weekly summary from the Council

 LATEST ANALYSIS 

• Biden Took 3 More Executive Actions on Immigration. Did He Go Far Enough?
  
  Following the confirmation of Alejandro Mayorkas as secretary of Homeland Security, President Biden signed three executive orders that take steps to further unwind the Trump administration’s restrictions on immigration. They focus on family reunification, asylum, and legal immigration. Read More »
   
• The Biden Administration Is Already Supporting Employment-Based Immigration, But Uncertainty Remains
  
  Business immigration has already benefited from the change in administrations. On January 25, President Biden issued an executive order directly replacing a Trump-era executive order that wreaked havoc on the H-1B visa category. Read More »
   
• No Need to Wait for Congress to Begin Using Humanizing Language in the Immigration Space
  
  Terms like refugee, guest worker, green card-holder—and even immigrant—may be legally or technically accurate, but their regular usage can cast foreign-born people as fundamentally different than others who live in the United States. Read More »

 FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW  

• One of President Biden’s recent executive orders reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to “preserving and fortifying” the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative. Where does DACA stand now and who benefits from it?  
  
  This new fact sheet from the American Immigration Council provides an overview of DACA and prior attempts to dismantle the initiative, as well as its current status.
  
  Read more: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA): An Overview

 ACROSS THE NATION 

• The Biden administration is prioritizing rebuilding our country’s capacity to resettle refugees, which had been gutted throughout the Trump administration. 
  
  Last week, Biden announced plans to raise the number of refugees allowed into the country annually to 125,000 people.
  
  This fact sheet explains current refugee flows and how refugee resettlement in the United States works:
  
  Read more: An Overview of U.S. Refugee Law and Policy

 QUOTE OF THE WEEK 

“One of the things that we certainly expect is for the new administration to work to change the culture within [the State Department], and hopefully, that will translate into a greater level of customer service and communication, especially when there are [situations] at play that include families being separated right away, including where there is a young child that is on the way.”

–Jorge Loweree, policy director at the American Immigration Council, in  ‘COVID-19 causing delays in immigration visas and keeping families apart’ from ABC News

 FURTHER READING 

• USA Today: A pardon for 'Dreamers'? Some activists tout amnesty for undocumented immigrants if Congress doesn't act 
   

• The Hill: ICE union contract prompts fear of resistance to Biden 
   

• The Washington Post: When local police cooperate with ICE, Latino communities under-report crime. Here’s the data. 
   

• In These Times: The Trump Administration’s Cruelty Haunts Our Virtual Immigration Courts 

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