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
BILLS INTRODUCED AND CONSIDERED
SPOTLIGHT ON NATIONAL IMMIGRATION FORUM RESOURCES
A note: The bulletin will not be published next week, November 15, as the Forum will be focused on our annual convening, Leading the Way. We will be back on Friday, November 22, 2024.
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
Donald Trump Elected 47th President of United States
On November 5 and 6, Donald Trump won re-election to the presidency, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris after reclaiming the so-called blue wall of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
The day before, Trump delivered his closing message in Pennsylvania, where he portrayed the U.S. as an “occupied country” and said he would “rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered.” His remarks — which disparaged legal and unauthorized immigrants alike — reflected increasingly divisive language he has used on the campaign trail to scapegoat immigrant communities around the country.
Once he regains the Oval Office, he has promised to enforce mass deportations, end birthright citizenship, reimplement the Migrant Protection Protocols (also known as “Remain in Mexico”), and otherwise upend both legal and unauthorized immigration to the U.S.
Border Crossings Remain Low in October
In October, migrant apprehensions between official ports of entry at the U.S.-Mexico border remained comparatively low at around 57,000, according to internal federal statistics reported by CBS News, as Mexico continues to put migrants through a “merry-go-round” of enforcement tactics while the Biden administration severely restricts asylum for most anyone who enters the country without an appointment.
Recent monthly border crossings have been far lower than even before the Covid-19 pandemic under the latter part of Donald Trump’s first term, when in fiscal year 2019, the monthly average of migrant apprehensions was around 71,000, Reuters reports.
But officials and experts are warning that — as a consequence of the election results and Trump’s promises to shutter the border even more so than it is now — there may be a significant uptick in migrant crossings ahead of his inauguration.
“The message, both from smugglers and the messages from migrants to each other, will be ‘get there now. There’s a hard deadline,’” said Adam Isacson with the Washington Office on Latin America.
On the Mexican side of the border, some families who have been waiting nearly a year for a CBP One appointment to legally enter at a port of entry — a pathway Trump plans to discontinue — were watching the election outcomes closely, as if awaiting their fate.
“Yes, I’m scared,” said Areli Doral, who was traveling with her 2-year-old son, Edgar. “If they close the (CBP One) application, what are we going to do? We already waited 10 months.
“It’s nerve-racking.”
Slow Start to Refugee Arrivals for FY 2025
For October, the first month of FY 2025, the refugee numbers include 7,629 arrivals. That is fewer than the average of 8,336 monthly arrivals in FY 2024.
The highest number of refugee arrivals for October came from the Near East/South Asia, with 3,135 refugees resettled. Champions of the U.S. refugee program have said that the Biden administration would do well to bring in as many refugees as possible over the next few months, in light of the fact that President-elect Donald Trump has said he will pause all refugee resettlement day one of his administration.
Legal
Judge Rules Against ‘Keeping Families Together’ Program
On November 7, U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker — appointed by Donald Trump in his first presidential term — ruled against the Biden administration’s “Keeping Families Together” program that would have allowed over a half million family members of U.S. citizens to stay legally in the U.S. and viably access green cards for which they’re already eligible.
Campbell Barker sided with a number of Republican-controlled states led by Texas and Stephen Miller’s organization, America First Legal, deciding that the executive branch did not have the legal authority to grant parole-in-place to shield immigrants already in the U.S.
The “Keeping Families Together” program was announced in June and rolled out in August, but adjudications were quickly forced on pause amid the lawsuit.
“District Court Judge J. Campbell Barker did not just dismantle the Keeping Families Together program, he shattered the hopes of hundreds of thousands of American families,” said Ashley DeAzevedo, president of American Families United.
“Families like ours deserve better than this blatant attempt to stop a legal program, and we will not stop until the courts rectify this injustice.”
State and Local
Texas Requires Hospitals to Ask Patients About Immigration Status
Starting November 1, following an order from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), Texas hospitals began asking patients about their citizenship status. The state now requires hospitals to track and report the “cost of medical care provided to illegal immigrants,” saying that the federal government “may and should be obligated to reimburse the state of Texas for the costs that its open border policies have imposed on Texans.”
The Texas Hospital Association says that the new policy will not affect care for undocumented patients, and patients will not be legally required to answer when asked about their citizenship status. Hospital workers must also inform patients that their answers will not impact the care they receive.
However, critics argue that the policy will make immigrants hesitant to seek emergency medical care. They point to a similar law enacted in Florida last year that has created fear and uncertainty among immigrants and ultimately provided little data regarding the cost of medical care for undocumented individuals.
Undocumented immigrants make up only 14% of Texas’s uninsured population—uninsured citizens pose greater costs to the state. Additionally, undocumented individuals typically seek medical care and visit hospitals at lower rates than uninsured citizens.
Texas has declined an option since 2010 to expand Medicaid in the state, which would grant an extra $5.6 billion in annual federal tax dollars and allow officials to provide health insurance to another 1.4 million residents.
Former DACA Recipient Wins Seat in New Mexico Legislature
On November 5, Cindy Nava (D) became one of the first former Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients to win public office when she was elected to represent an Albuquerque-area district in New Mexico’s legislature.
Nava came to the United States when she was 7 years old and spent time at the New Mexico legislature as a teenager advocating around state-funded college scholarships for undocumented youth.
She later joined the Biden administration in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as “the first former DACA recipient to receive a White House political appointment,” according to KUNM.
Her successful bid for a seat in the state legislature was “not about running to represent people,” Nava said. “This is about running to bring people to the table.”
Arizona Approves Immigration Enforcement Ballot Measure
On November 5, voters in Arizona overwhelmingly approved Proposition 314, a ballot measure that included copycat language similar to Texas’s controversial law creating a parallel state-level deportation system and challenging federal authority over immigration enforcement.
With 76% of the vote in, 63% of Arizonans supported the proposition to significantly increase state and local law enforcement’s involvement in policing unauthorized immigration, while creating new state-level crimes targeting immigrants.
The measure includes provisions criminalizing immigrants’ use of false documents to apply for employment or try to qualify for benefits. Separately, it also makes selling fentanyl that turns deadly a felony.
Those new policies take effect immediately. However, the parts of the proposition mirroring Texas’s Senate Bill 4 by erecting an alternative, state-level immigration enforcement system won’t be implemented until a similar law has been enforced in another state for at least 60 days — a prospect made more complicated by ongoing litigation.
As with Texas’s SB 4 and copycat laws in Iowa and Oklahoma, Arizona’s Proposition 314 has raised stakeholders’ concerns that widespread racial profiling and an erosion of community trust toward law enforcement could follow enactment.
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 expected to be in session from Tuesday, November 12 through Friday, November 15, 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, November 11, 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.
Congressional Research Service; Supreme Court Rules That There Is No Constitutional Right to Having an Alien Spouse Admitted to the United States; Published November 5, 2024
This legal sidebar explores the legal background and implications of the June 21, 2024 Supreme Court decision in Department of State v. Muñoz.
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:
Texas v U.S.: How One State Is Reshaping Federal Authority Over Immigration
This landing page hosts three white papers that together provide an overview of the ongoing conflict between Texas and the Biden administration, highlighting some of the most impactful battles along the many fronts where the state has challenged the federal government’s power over immigration.
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.
Arizona Proposition 314, Secure the Border Act: Summary
On November 5, 2024, Arizona voters decided on Proposition 314, known as the “Secure the Border Act.” This initiative represents a significant effort to increase state and local authorities’ involvement in carrying out immigration enforcement responsibilities, echoing the controversial SB 1070 law passed in 2010 and subsequently mostly struck down by the courts.
* * *
*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 avillarreal@immigrationforum.org. Thank you.