Washington, D.C. (June 18, 2021) – On the week marking the ninth anniversary of President Obama's unlawful DACA decree, the Biden administration made three unilateral changes to immigration policy, which will result in more de facto amnesty and more illegal immigration.
U Visa Work Permits
On Monday, the Biden administration announced a new policy for U visa applicants that could potentially allow every illegal alien in the country to obtain a work permit. Rather than enhancing policies for aliens who are legitimate victims of crime (which is what the U visa is supposed to be for), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will now give out four-year renewable work permits to any illegal alien who merely applies for a U visa.
Utilizing a loophole in the law, the new policy will create a lower screening threshold that will give all illegal aliens with a pending U visa petition the ability to work lawfully for years before USCIS reviews their petitions (now in a quarter-million-application backlog) for statutory eligibility.
Robert Law, the Center’s director of regulatory affairs and policy, said, “Once word gets out, every illegal alien in the country will file a U petition, which is free, to get a free work permit.”
Central American Minors Refugee/Parole Program
On Tuesday, the Biden administration announced “updated guidance” for the revived Central American Minors Refugee/Parole (CAM) program, enabling many more Central Americans in the U.S. to petition to bring their children here. It's not clear which version of the CAM program this will apply to, since it was expanded after its initial invention by the Obama administration.
Access the program is expanded in two ways, turning it into a de facto family-reunification program for Central American illegal aliens. First, it can now be used not only by parents who are in the U.S., but now also by legal guardians. Second, more parents or legal guardians are now eligible. Originally, they had to be "lawfully present" in the United States; this week's expansion adds those who have a pending asylum application or a pending U visa petition filed before May 15, 2021.
Nayla Rush, a Senior Researcher at the Center, writes "The expanded Biden version will have more outreach, but the rationale is the same: Don't come here illegally because we will come get you in legally."
Expansion of Asylum
Finally, on Wednesday Attorney General Merrick Garland vacated an earlier policy and dramatically expanded access to asylum. To be granted asylum, an alien present in the United States must prove past persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. But the phrase “membership in a particular social group” is sufficiently vague that it could well swallow the rule that asylum is supposed to be circumscribed, if it is interpreted too expansively.
To prevent this, Attorney General Jeff Sessions provided bright-line rules for what constitutes "a particular social group", specifically finding that victims of private criminal activity or domestic violence are generally not members of a cognizable "particular social group" for purposes of asylum. Garland reversed this finding.
Andrew Arthur, the Center’s resident fellow in law and policy, writes, “One way to eliminate court backlogs is to just grant everybody relief.”
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